


痛みごと君委ねましょう

by MUNASHIKU



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Alois gets a second chance, Body Borrowing, Cats, Grim Reapers, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Resurrection, Smut, Soul Sex, Souls, soul eating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:27:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 35,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23313868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MUNASHIKU/pseuds/MUNASHIKU
Summary: A contract is a contract is a contract. Ciel Phantomhive lives on despite his body being six feet under. So long as his master lives, the demon sacrifices himself.
Relationships: Sebastian Michaelis & Alois Trancy, Sebastian Michaelis/Ciel Phantomhive
Comments: 9
Kudos: 45





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The young earl DID say to make it as painful as possible. End of season 1.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're uncomfortable with someone having sex with another person during a PTSD episode, you can skip this chapter. Basically Sebastian just triggers Ciel and fucks him before he takes his soul.
> 
> The Trancy arc starts around CH 8.

Sebastian frowned, staring at the boy he’d known for years, who was offering himself so willingly up for devouring. The boy requested for him to make it as painful as possible, and Sebastian was willing to bet that the young master meant physical pain. Sure, physical pain brought the demon delight, but mental anguish…

His eyes, closed, head tilted back in a submissive gesture to reveal the unmarked neck waiting to be claimed. There was no wind to brush that blue-grey hair, or to conceal the movements of the demon if he moved. Alas, he did not.

Ciel waited. He’d been waiting for this day since that fateful night he was ‘saved’ by the demon. He wasn’t afraid. Yet his eyes remain closed. Waited for his butler to approach him, tear his skin, rip out his soul as he requested.

Yet nothing was happening.

“Hey, Sebastian, get to—“ he opened his eyes and his voice caught in his throat. He hadn’t moved, yet he was no longer sitting on the stone bench moments ago, but instead draped atop of a stone table. Upon realizing this, his wrists and ankles were seized by black shadows that sputtered black feathers from their depths. His heart jumped and the images of a past that was supposed to be put to rest jumped right in front of his eyes.

His eyes darted around frantically, searching for his butler in the dimly lit area. These were still the stone walls of the fallen buildings he was just surrounded by, lit by candles, yet there was no longer an open sky. Just darkness… His body writhed in the grips with futile effort. “What is the meaning of this, Sebastian?!”

Heeding the call, his butler appeared, bent over the table with a pleasant smile on his face. “Young master?”

The sight of Sebastian was supposed to be the calm in the storm, but the dancing shadows around him with disturbing laughing faces manipulated his sense of reality. Every movement that Sebastian made caused light to glint from his suit’s buttons, each flash a reminder of the giant knife wielded above his body, ready to plunge into his depths in sacrifice.

Sebastian stared at his prey, reveling in the way that the boy flinched when he pet a soft, flushed cheek, or how the boy’s breaths became shorter and more ragged, pupils dilated and seeing the unseen within his memories, behaving as prey behaved. His predatory instincts spiked, desire fed only by the sight of a frightened, panicked mortal. He licked his lips, eyes devouring the sight of the young earl’s panic attack.

He was choking on his spit in his struggle for breath, not registering when Sebastian ripped his clothes away and leaned in to just _bask_ in the waves of sheer terror he was emitting. “H-help…”

“Young master,” Sebastian repeated, hand tracing down Ciel’s throat, black nails-turned-claws pinpricking the soft, white skin, just enough to leave red welts. At first, the boy jerked away as much as he could; did he mistake these for the hands of those who’d hurt him in the past? But as the touch travelled lower, the boy seemed confused, body pressing into the touches despite its original attempt at fleeing.

Ciel closed his eyes, gulping, attempting to gain control of his senses, the touching giving him a rope back to sanity. The hand grew bolder in their touches, cupping under his armpits before fingers were thumbing his exposed nipples. He pushed his torso upward in response, a conflicting sensation of pleasure amidst the panic. His body was alight, hot with fear, but this sparked a different sort of heat.

Sebastian’s young master had long reached the age of self-discovery, yet the entire time he’d served the earl, he’d never once attempted to service himself. Lust was a powerful emotion that demons fed upon; such a combination of lust and fear was a rare and delicious topping to the meal. He had every intention of exercising his abilities to their fullest to make sure the soul he’d groomed for years would be the meal he would crave another taste of for centuries to come.

The boy jumped as the demon’s hand dug into his side, gripping at the skin as though he wanted to tear it off. His eyes opened briefly, only to see a glint of sharp metal objects dangling above him, extending from the darkness. The struggles intensified twice fold and a bark of a scream came from Ciel, a noise that had Sebastian’s hair rising and a hard throb of arousal to pulse through his body.

“Oh, young master, there really is nothing to fear,” that sweet dulcet voice whispered those lies as Sebastian hovered his face over Ciel. Ciel didn’t seem to respond to Sebastian’s closing presence, eyes frozen in place on the knives above.

“Sebastian… Sebastian, save me,” Ciel called out, tears spilling out of his eyes, and he was forced to close them as they stung.

The butler’s ungloved hand crawled lower still, and tickled the earl’s virgin manhood. “But my lord, I _am_ saving you.” Fingers gripped gently around the length, squeezing experimentally as the demon greedily observed for a response.

A gargle, a warbled cry as Ciel twisted this way and that, overloaded with stimulation from everything. He screamed, legs making an extra effort to kick.

Sebastian watched on. It was amusing how his master tried to avoid anything pleasurable, as such things to the earl were weak and would hold him back in his conquest for revenge.

But all that was over now. He didn’t have to fight the joys of pleasure anymore. He was able to feel good.

Hand gave a few jerks upward, and shortly after, his hips followed. Spit was drooling out of the boy’s mouth as his screams died down to hoarse moans, though one would easily mistake them for groans of pain. “Please help…” he tried to get out. His hair was slick with sweat, and for a moment, he let himself succumb to the sensations. His heart still hammered in his chest, and screaming felt like the only outlet, but he let himself pause.

The hand twisted expertly, up and down— _oh_ —slicking over the slit of his length, with a precision and familiarity that spoke of years of knowing his preferences despite never touching him once in such a fashion.

His breathing, already labored, fell into rhythm with the hand, Sebastian’s hand, the hand that was giving him repose from this nightmare. Sebastian could see the boy’s gasps in the form of fog, swirling gently from his mouth.

“Young master,” he murmured, leaning in just a bit more for his mouth to make contact with his master’s skin. The cultured mix of salt, fear, and arousal was delectable, and Sebastian found he couldn’t get enough. He lapped at the earl’s neck much like a cat who grooms themselves, breath hot and heady. Lips closing to suck upon that adam’s apple that wasn’t fully there, feeling the vibrations from Ciel’s throat as he yelped and gasped at his ministrations. How he longed to sink his fangs in and rip his throat out, but that would be giving the boy what he wanted. Physical pain, something he could understand, a welcome distraction from mental torment. No, Ciel had one more lesson to learn before he left this world.

The boy was getting close, he could tell. Sebastian would have attempted to play with the boy’s sac as well, but as he was missing an arm, to tease him might be too cruel for this situation.

Ciel opened his eyes and instead of focusing on what was above him, he kept his eyes lowered to the black nest of hair beneath his chin as Sebastian sucked on his skin.

“Se-bastian… why…” electricity seemed to fill his body from head to toe, stomach dipping as the most pleasurable feelings consumed him over the fear. His heart beat not with fear, but with a certain anticipation, a feeling he recalled when he was… happy. Happy to learn that he’d gotten a dog or a toy he’d always wished for. The burning in his chest, the joy when Lillie and he would play together, the warmth when he was being held by his parents. He wanted to fight it—those days were long gone, and he never wanted to experience pleasure like that again lest it be taken away again—but—but!

_Oh_

His legs wanted to curl inward but the hands held them down—

_Ah_

His vision was going green as his hips jerked upward again with a fervor he’d never known. Before he reached his peak, the sensations went away. Ciel gasped, feeling as though the wind was knocked out of him, and he lifted his head up to stare—glare?—confused and exasperated at his butler.

 _Sebastian_.

Those glowing red eyes were gazing up at him with a glimmer of humour in them, that taciturn smile saying it all.

The demon had moved and positioned himself in between the young earl’s legs, which Ciel found were released from the grips of the shadows. Instead of kicking the bastard of a demon away, they wrapped themselves as best they could around the demon’s waist. He didn’t know what the endpoint was, but he needed to _reach it_ and this needed to happen _now_.

He weakly tried to create friction by wiggling his hips. He sobbed, a fresh wave of tears leaking out as he felt just as helpless as he did the first day he’d summoned Sebastian. “Stop this,” he whimpered.

Sebastian was poking at his entrance, and he watched, amused. His master’s eyes were wild and unfocused once more. The very brief break from tactile stimulation seemed to be all that it took for Ciel to fall back into the hauntings of his tormentors, once again washing Sebastian in that delicious dread.

He gripped Ciel’s face with his only hand, forcing his face toward him. “Young master,” he said, bending down with relative ease, given his height, to press his forehead against the younger’s. As soon as the boy opened his eyes to stare into those red pits of hell, the demon thrust forward into the unprepared tightness.

Ciel screamed, oh he tried, but they were consumed by Sebastian’s forceful kiss, slippery and unsteady due to all of his drooling. Head trying to jerk this way and that, held steady by the demon’s hand. Yes, it hurt, and maybe that was something that Ciel could hold on to, because there was a disturbing clarity in his eyes once they took a chance to open. Filled with tears, they were, but they _saw_ Sebastian now. They knew what he was doing.

Sebastian was pleased with these results. His tongue licked along Ciel’s teeth, an invitation for him to dance, the only free movement not actively hampered by the shadow hands. Ciel accepted, though Sebastian suspected he was battling with the idea of biting the demon’s tongue off. Ciel was aggressive, which was amusing, as his tongue’s vigour was betrayed by how his body shook like a fragile leaf in a powerful storm.

The demon started a slow, gentle pace. The earl was wincing; it couldn’t be helped. But he _did_ ask for his death to be painful, it would get better. The boy’s length wept pitifully between their bodies, dirtying the pureblood skin of his stomach with small amounts of his essence as he was plundered by his butler. He could have focused on the pain, but this tongue kissing may be the last game that he would ever play with his butler, and he was going to remember it.

He caught the demon’s tongue between his teeth, and sucked. Sebastian let out a groan, his thrusts picking up the pace. Ciel’s hands were suddenly released by the shadows, and he gripped at the butler’s shoulders before sliding them into the butler’s hair and keeping him locked in the kiss. Sebastian’s own hand found its way onto the boy’s hip, gripping tightly for extra power.

Ciel was hiccupping between gasps, the pleasure climbing swiftly back to where he was before Sebastian had pulled away. His heart was in his throat, feeling like it wanted to escape right into Sebastian’s mouth. He had to pull away from the kiss to—

_Ohhh_

To—

He hadn’t felt this good since when his parents were alive.

His body arched toward the heavens, singing a long-lost ecstasy of pleasure while tears poured down his cheeks, an involuntary response to the reminder of what feeling good was like, and how such positive feelings had been stripped away from the earl on that tragic day.

His essence splattered upon his stomach. A warm, sticky sensation as his heart continued to pull in his chest. He felt like he could… fly away from here.

The only thing keeping him tethered was the hands from Hell.

It felt like his heart was in his mouth now. That pleasurable feeling being sucked right out of his body, suddenly feeling very tired, like he needed a long sleep.

“Young master,” Sebastian whispered as he kissed his lord, soul willingly slipping from the boy.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian plays with Ciel's soul.

The boy’s young soul was hovering just above the cooling lips of the body he’d just ravaged. It was a white ball of energy, pale blue wisps twirling around a darker rich blue center. Sebastian always found it interesting the colour a soul would take; oftentimes it depended on the person’s personality, and rarely—and Sebastian had never seen this colour—would it take on such a rich, dark colour such as the one of Ciel’s eyes.

Sebastian smiled as wisps of energy extended outward, tickling Sebastian’s lips as though an invitation. The demon was well versed in soul manipulation, both inside and outside of the body. His tongue slid out and made contact with the soul in response, watching it shudder from the stimulus. He groaned at the taste, a flavor that human food could never parallel. Ciel’s body twitched as well, giving Sebastian pause.

Well, this was new.

He’d assumed that once the soul was this far out of the body, that interacting with it would not result in an echoed response from the vessel. Perhaps, because it was still sitting rightly upon Ciel’s lips, it still transmitted sensations into the vessel as though he were actually giving Ciel the most sensuous of sexual endeavours.

He had never tested this before.

“Young master,” he gasped, with his lips still on the soul, brushing gently. The child’s body shuddered in response, goosebumps rising on his nude, cold body. That devil’s tongue snuck out again, giving a long, lustful lick on that ball of energy. It pulsed, nearly burning Sebastian’s tongue with increased heat. The body arched up in response, a weak moan curling its way out of the boy who was supposed to be dead. The eyes remain blank, unmoving, but the body was still very much alive.

Sebastian brushed the back of his one hand upon the child’s forehead, pushing the hair out of those soulless eyes, viewing his reflection as he toyed with Ciel’s soul, sucking, biting, moaning into the tastiest of prey he’d ever captured. The body jerked and clenched, hands balling into fists and sultry mewls being produced. The boy had become hard again despite its recent ejaculation, small member standing proud and coated with dried semen.

He paid no mind to it, having already fed extensively on the mind, body, and soul’s lust when the boy still had life to him. This was merely dousing frog legs with salt and watching them dance with no rhythm.

Black-nailed fingers circled slowly around the soul and began to squeeze. Those breathy moans twisted into jagged screams. Sebastian had no intention of crushing the soul into oblivion; what a waste of a meal that would be. He did relish in those screams, ones that he’d once or twice imagined Ciel to produce from underneath him as he conquered his master in a game that Ciel had no experience in. The young earl's pieces turning against him: Ciel's own knight conquering Ciel's own king, breaking all the rules of chess… yet, Sebastian's master would come out on top despite this.

Now, it doesn’t matter.

The body arched up in a climax as Sebastian opened his mouth and sucked the soul inside, not letting it move away from the boy, just engulfing it to where his lips made contact with Ciel’s. The body convulsed in an orgasm, little ejaculate coming from him this time. Sebastian supposed if he’d done a third round, the boy would be dry.

He released the soul slowly from his mouth as the body’s quaking diminished. He stuck out his tongue in pain, as the soul’s energy did burn him. Granted, his demonic powers would quickly heal him. The taste was so worth the pain.

Straightening up and wiping his mouth, he cupped the soul with his hand and lifted it away from Ciel, watching as the body’s trembling ceased entirely, leaving his master to resemble a lifeless doll, head lolling to the side as those empty eyes stared on.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ciel's soul antagonizes Sebastian while in a new contract.

Sebastian had many souls lingering around in his body. Souls weren’t like food in that they were digested, energy harvested and the physical remnants excreted through the rectum. Souls for demons were power banks. Yes, a demon would still get hungry after its body acclimated and adjusted to the new addition of energy, but was it a requirement to feed? No.

Normally, Sebastian would go about his work, as he had found himself a new contract with one Duchess of Cambridge, who wanted to take her sister out of the picture for threatening her future role as the queen’s consort. Complicated human drama.

Unfortunately, it seemed that one particular soul didn’t want to behave like all the other souls. Granted, those souls didn’t have the tenacity, the fire, the pure unrestrained strength of the young Earl of Phantomhive that he consumed fifty years ago.

The boy, despite being gone, gave Sebastian weekly interruptions. The soul would move about his body despite strict restraints on the souls. Sebastian wondered if this was a sign that he was weakening, or if his niggling affection for the child gave him an uneasy amount of freedom in his body compared to other souls.

Sebastian was attempting to water the flora that grew in impressive arrangement, thanks to yours truly, when he felt a burning sensation in his chest. He hadn’t consumed any human food recently…

The heart supplied with this human body began to quicken on its own, and his body jerked of its own volition. Sebastian frowned, the burning feeling traveling up and down before creeping toward his groin. Of course. The blasted child.

Ciel had no restraints since being consumed by the demon. Anything to distract from the demon’s tasks, _especially_ when the demon needed to concentrate most, such as in a fight with a grim reaper, the boy would take it.

While demons did not have souls, they had energy within them that was comparable to a human’s soul. It could be released upon killing a demon, or manipulated when drawn out of the body, in the form of a soul, but you wouldn’t find a demon who’d defend the term ‘soul’ for what they had.

He kept his energy under lock and key, a barrier around it to prevent any demon from getting a taste of it, much like one keeps mental barriers up in case of a telepathic creature attempting to read one’s thoughts. No one could get in, no one could get out.

That didn’t stop Ciel from trying.

Despite being a soul, the boy could still communicate with Sebastian. It wasn’t in clear cut words, but Sebastian could glean what the soul was trying to say and translate it into the brat’s high-class dialect.

The boy had many questions, none of which the demon was obligated to reply to, yet Sebastian found himself doing so. The roles he play as a demon in disguise often resulted in much down time, and Sebastian could do tasks without much mental thought behind it. Having someone to converse with in the dead hours of the night, when humans slept whereas demons did not, was a pleasant change of pace. That is, when Ciel wasn’t being bothersome.

Right now Ciel’s soul was knocking under Sebastian’s pants, and he grimaced, keeping his posture straight as an arrow, preferring to focus on his tasks at hand than the child’s impish actions. He could easily control where his body directed blood to, including away from his groin, which the child was pushing blood to.

He’d deal with the boner later. No one was around to witness it, so there was no point in diverting attention to the distraction that the child had made. No sense to give him attention while he had more important things to do. Like watering the flowers.

Ciel would pout; he was bored, but he would learn to have more patience and more respect as he danced with Sebastian for the rest of the demon’s existence.

.o

The Duchess had ordered Sebastian to bed her.

It was not unheard of for a master to order such things from a demon. Loneliness is a killer in humans, after all, and what better way to stave that off than to bed the one who will kill you anyway?

Sebastian’s mind wandered even as the sound of skin slapping on skin filled the air. His Duchess did not hold back, letting out raunchy, obscene moans each time Sebastian’s hips made contact with hers, a squelching wet noise accenting.

He wasn’t turned on by this in the slightest. His Duchess did not have the type of personality he’d prefer. She wasn’t confident, unwavering, bold, unafraid of death, the attributes he would have found in one young Earl… but alas, an order was an order, and he willed his penis to rise to complete the demand. The lust flowing from the Duchess did whet his appetite, however.

Ciel was not happy with this. Perhaps it was the kid’s immaturity in certain fields (though what he lacked in those subjects he more than made up for in maturity elsewise), but the pure jealousy the soul was emanating was quite cute, the demon thought. To the demon, it was just a job. To the child, it was akin to… going behind his back while under contract and serving another human?

 _Your logic is quite illogical at times,_ Sebastian grinned inwardly at Ciel, even as he thrust quickly into the lady beneath him.

 _I don’t like it_ , Ciel responded, his hot presence burning a pit in the demon’s stomach.

 _Then look away_ , the lady clenched tightly around his length, causing his thoughts to momentarily waver. While he wasn’t interested in this copulation, that didn’t prevent him from feeling humanly responses to erotic stimulation, that including a snug wet pocket milking his rod for all it was worth. He ground his hips fervently into his lady’s, a hand moving down to rub her clit. Her legs spasmed, a sharp intake of air, and her insides squeezed, signaling she was near.

 _Look at you, all hot and bothered for this wench_ , the boy scoffed, floating idly around Sebastian, and the trail of heat followed. Sebastian let out a groan not completely tied to his Duchess’s actions, falling onto his elbows and his black bangs brushing against the Duchess’s face, which was contorted in pleasure.

Ciel noticed that the barrier that Sebastian had placed around that ‘no-go’ zone was weaker than normal. Perhaps it was because he was distracted, feeding upon the sensation of lust from his new master?

He wiggled through it with effort, and suddenly, he was _surrounded_ by Sebastian’s power. It was suffocating, strangling him with an otherworldly force. It was only a few seconds of him passing in and out of that barrier, but it was enough to knock himself out from the painful amount of pleasure he’d received from brushing against what was essentially Sebastian’s essence.

Sebastian himself didn’t fair better. He felt the trying brat wiggle into his weakened defenses, and he lost all sight as pleasure burst from his body. The contact of human soul to demon essence; it was like Ciel flew right through him, and the image of the young Phantomhive plastered itself behind his eyes as his body seized, unprepared and releasing his seed into the Duchess. He gasped when his muscles finally untensed, nearly falling right on top of his Duchess before catching himself and rolling to the side. He’d never had an orgasm that intense. It had him drained, as though the boy’s soul had stolen some of his essential energy.

His lady, at some point during his whiteout, had come as well, for she was panting and cooing, breathing heavy with a smile on her rosy face. By the time she opened her eyes, her servant had returned to his stoic, cleancut self, no evidence of sweat on his body or her fluids upon him staining his clothes remained. Not a lover, not a friend, not a companion. All that stood was the demon she bound herself to.

She scratched at the contract seal which had been placed underneath one of her voluptuous breasts. “Excellent work,” she breathed, trying to gain her composure by fanning herself.

Sebastian smiled on the outside, but was a storm on the inside, wondering what just happened and wondering if he never wanted it to happen again.

The boy’s strong soul seemed to reflame itself as he came out of his stupor.

 _Never forget me_ , Ciel spoke in a commanding voice.

He definitely was going to have to construct stronger boundaries so that his body remained his body and didn't become a puppet for the little hellion.

Sebastian’s lips twitched as he almost, _almost_ , said ‘ _Yes, my lord,_ ’ in response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note to self if I come back to this story: write bout sebastian stealing the soul of another kid and putting ciel's soul in that body and then they shebang bruh -also ciel getting sebs to whack it in that scene lmfoa kilm meeeeee
> 
> edit: also now i'm writing more story thanks comments kkaehh


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snippit of Ciel getting put into another boy's body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm writing this on notepad so sorry for any msitakes

The little brunette blinked fearfully as Sebastian encroached on his personal space with the intent on devouring his soul.

"Fear not, Master Gallows. It will hurt, but I will try to make it as painless as I can." He gave a reassuring smile, and Gallows managed to smile a bit.

"There's those cute dimples," Sebastian said cheerfully, pinching Gallows's cheek with a gloved hand. 

The young boy smiled, closing his lids and accepting his fate with a sense of safety despite the hungry demon kneeling before him. 

"Thank you, Papa," Gallows said, hiccuping and wiping away the snot from his nose. 

Sebastian made it quick. The boy's breath hitched as it was stolen from him, his body rocking forward before falling to his knees and tiny body taken by gravity. Sebastian prevented him from falling completely, guiding him in a gentle fall to the stone earth. The liveliness from the boy's brown eyes faded, before being illuminated by the exquisite light of his soul that had been drawn out by Sebastian. 

The soul was a lovely rose gold, the pretty hue accentuating the browns in his hair. 

"Is it just me, or are more children selling their souls to the devil?" Ciel commented from within Sebastian, his pith swirling gently in his torso. 

"Children are pure; the first impurities are the hardest on a child, whether they realise it or not. Their sorrow is based on their limited view of the world. To fulfil their request involves a lot less tainting of their soul by the stressors adulthood brings. A pure soul is fine, but not exactly filling; a pure soul wrought by the first betrayal or devastation is most delicious, especially when that despair is groomed as the desire for revenge grows." 

The demon pet the child's short brown hair with the tenderness befitting a father. The child remarked that Sebastian had looked like his father, the father that had been murdered by a mutt of a man whom Sebastian had terminated very quickly. The mongrel had also nearly beheaded the child in an attempt to end the lineage of this child. Miraculously, the child had survived under intensive care. The child had suffered for a full year wishing for nothing but his father to be avenged. After the attack, the gruesome appearance of a sewn neck kept any kid from bonding with him. Wrought by the cruel pain of loneliness, the child called out to him. To see Papa kill the mutt before his very eyes, the child was most grateful. His father could rest in peace, avenged. 

He gorged himself on the boy's soul, a lukewarm soul compared to some other ones that had more fight to them. The new power that he consumed flowed through his body, giving him an extra boost of energy that gave him the urge to act upon the abhorrent things he was fantasizing of now. The glow disappeared from their environment, and he was left in the dark with Gallows's corpse.

"Now," he said, and he pulled back just a bit. He pressed his hand against his chest, and with his demonic forces, he drew Ciel's soul out of his body. He looked fondly at the glowing ball of deep blue beauty; the soul that no other could compare to. "Master, into the body." 

He tucked Ciel into Gallows's body, waiting for the moment when the boy would gain life alight in his eyes once more. The body jerked, arching up as a freshly dead heart began to pump again, even though it would not be for much longer. 

Over the years (sixty-three, to be exact), Sebastian had experimented. Experimented for the hell of it, and not because he was becoming increasingly fascinated with shiny things of the royal blue variety. Ciel would not stop making fun of him for collecting a variety of blue objects: books, jewelry, ceramic figure, even clothing, despite not wearing anything outside of monochrome design. Many items decorated his domain in the netherworld. 

He experimented just to see if he could bring a body back to life after taking the owner's soul. That's all. Not because he wanted to sodomize one of his prior masters again.

A soul that was put into a foreign body was often rejected, much like an organ transplant failure. He could get up to half an hour of extended use with the dead body, but after that it started to decay. 

Ciel coughed, sputum coming out as breath filled the boy's lungs. He sat up from his position on the ground, glad that Sebastian had caught Gallows so that he hadn't hit his head on the ground. Despite everything, he still felt the ailments and injuries that his borrowed bodies suffered.

"Sebastian," the boy said, and Sebastian perked up like a cat spotting prey. 

It didn't sound like his young master...

The boy didn't have Ciel's voice or Ciel's appearance, but hearing his master's way of speaking through living vocal chords was enough for him.

He'd been waiting a long time for this. Though he got through contracts relatively quickly when it came to the younger contracts, to be able to hold his master again... each time began the cycle of longing afterward again.

The demon combed his fingers through that brown hair, and if he closed his eyes, he could imagine it was his young master's blue-grey hair, as they had the same silkiness. He leaned in, nose brushing against the boy's and lips whispering against his cheeks. 

He could feel the boy's eyelashes flutter against his skin. Ciel must have been surprised that he was being so forward so quickly, but he wanted Ciel then and there. 

It didn't smell like his young master...

"Wait a second--" Ciel tried but Sebastian was already unbuttoning the two of four buttons left on the boy's rankled clothes, a formality considering he could have ripped the clothes off and it wouldn't matter. Gallows would never use these clothes again. 

His fingers made it to skin before Ciel could finish his protests, circling around the boy's weak neck and applying pressure where the scar and permanent stitching of Gallow's near-beheading forever were, before moving down to his chest, pressing firmly and lightly squeezing. Muscles that weren't fully developed twitched under his queer groping. Ciel's hands moved up to follow in time with Sebastian's, attempting to lift one and entwine their fingers together. It had been a few years since he'd been able to feel physical contact. It didn't help that the boy whose body he inhabited lacked the same contact that growing young children like him desperately needed. 

So touch deprived, body starving for stimulation...

Fingers played along pronounced ribs, a sensation that tickled Ciel and an odd giggle coming out of him. It was like he was watching a movie, seeing, hearing, and experiencing everything that was happening right now, yet feeling like he wasn't really there.

"Ahhh... Sebastian," Ciel groaned when the demon began to lick his navel, an area he wouldn't normally find appealing on his own body, but was an erogenous zone for Gallows's body. The sensitive spots he knew on Ciel from years of diligent handling of the boy were not the same on this--in comparison--stranger of a human.

There was a tingle from between his legs as Gallows's body reacted appropriately, his prick beginning to rise. Gallows was a couple years younger than Ciel had been when he was claimed, but that wasn't a bother for either of them, seeing as he was able to properly respond. 

"Young master," Sebastian murmured into his tummy, causing another session of laughter to erupt from Ciel. The demon started kissing from his navel downward, a short distance to the erection. 

"Ahh," tiny hips bucked awkwardly up, his groin jabbing Sebastian under the chin. Sebastian smiled, whether amused or annoyed, Ciel wasn't sure, but suddenly his hips were on lockdown when Sebastian gripped them tightly.

He rolled the organ smoothly into his mouth, careful to avoid teeth scraping, as the cocks of boys this young had less tolerance to that sort of play than boys Ciel's age. Ciel moaned in that long, low way that had Sebastian's undivided attention. Not the same voice, but the way it came out hit key points for the demon's own thirst to spark.

Ciel resolved to wrapping his thin legs around his demon's neck, attempting to keep him here, small hands gripping at that raven's hair. He didn't have much strength to pull hard enough to hurt, but he made a point to pull anyway to let Sebastian know he was doing good... as if his grunts and groans weren't good enough.

His cheeks hollowed as he sucked as though trying to draw out Ciel's soul through the little slit, which leaked with pre.

It didn't taste like his master...

His buzz slightly killed, he continued anyway, for it would please both he and the young earl to lead him to completion. 

He didn't swallow the pitiful amount of ejaculate when it squirted out (though he did greatly enjoy that throaty cry upon Ciel's release). Instead, he laved it around on his tongue so that it collected in the basin of his tongue. He released the prick with a pop and moved swiftly to lick at his anus, which clenched in response to the hot liquid being forced in by that strong, and very talented, appendage. Ciel's legs clamped down tighter in response.

"Unfortunately, young master, this body is simply too small for me to enter. However..." His tongue finished his sentence for him, extending far beyond what a human should be able to do, wiggling inside the boy and spreading the cum and his saliva about the boy's walls. He released the boy's hips in order to remove one of his gloves.

"Nngh!" was Ciel's only response. His body was dancing in pleasure. Each body had its own way of processing pleasure, and thankfully this one functioned just fine, because it behaved beautifully, toes curling when Sebastian stuck a finger into his pucker. He was oversensitized after his orgasm, but something in the demon's spit always seemed to help boost that libido into a state of horniness all over again. 

In and out, curved, scissoring, it didn't take much to get the young boy to cum again. Sebastian licked his lips when he felt that climax radiate from the soul itself.

He was going to eat the hell out of Ciel's soul as soon as the boy came back from unconsciousness. 

.o

The soul, sated from a healthy round of sexual affairs, sat heavily in Sebastian's chest, warming him as he purred and pet himself, wholly satisfied, with the contract and the fact that he got to despoil his master... all over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roturier got me interested in compltting htis story w/an interesting idea so now i have an entire plot written out/ end my life support  
> it's not going to get too in depth with contracts cuz i'm not smart enough for all that


	5. Interlude: Earl's Grey, Russian Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian has a favourite cat and its name is Ciel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place between contracts.

Sebastian was a cultured individual. He was well-versed in many languages, species, breeds, colours. He could name off the top of his head, every single specimen of beetle out there, all 400,000 of them, discovered and otherwise. Granted, this was because one of these contracts had been with a Coleoptera expert, and at least a brief knowledge of every subspecies was necessary to complete his contract.

But that was passing knowledge. His true area of expertise was of the Felidae variety.

Big, small, quick, stout, his knees quivered at the thought of such a majestic family of mammals. He was not of feline traits, rather having the attributes of a raven, but his obsession with the predators was insurmountable, Ciel being the only object on Earth that rivaled his fascination (as evidenced by his hoarding of shiny blue objects in his hellish domain).

In his downtime, how infrequent that may be, he would study the enticing beasts. Study their movements, collect books from around the world whilst recording notes of his own. He had published three books already on the eccentricity and wonderments of the domestic feline, though he was very eager to explore the larger species of cat!

Ciel, the soul floating about him, was not as enthusiastic. The only instances he’d had interacting with cats when he was alive involved allergic reactions: burning, watery eyes; intense sneezing fits when placed near the source, and the snot ran hours afterward; aggravation of his asthma, which had him lying on his back, desperately wheezing for air. With lungs of a child, it was an energy-draining task that he had to focus on for the rest of the day. However cute cats may have been to the demon, they were hell on earth for the child, and an Avoid-At-All-Costs situation.

There were many things about Ciel that Sebastian compared to a cat. The boy’s sharp eyes that tracked every movement. He could be blasé when he wanted to, even if something interested him, much like a cat that didn’t want its owner to think it _really_ missed them. He was petite, but feisty—however, any cat could be groomed to enjoy sitting on one’s lap after a time. He found it easier to rely on others to generate heat for him—Sebastian had no doubt that if blankets weren’t available to the young lad, he would have ordered Sebastian to embrace him until the cold passed. Skin as soft and squishable as a cat’s cute little bean paws. Lastly but not least, that silky smooth hair reminiscent of the finest pelt grown by feline kind.

Ah, that hair…

He was petting that hair right now. It was much shorter, yes, but every inch was a lurid reminder of his young master’s real body.

The Russian Blue. It came in many shades of grey, but to find one so exceptionally _blue_ , so grey blue like his master’s hair…

“Stop it,” the soul within him admonished. “Quit applying your sick fetish to me.”

“Whatever do you mean, young master?” Sebastian mused, almost moaning as he squeezed at the toes of the cat lying upon his lap. The cat’s chest rose and fall as it ran its motor, purring fervently. It made a small mewl and Sebastian felt like his essence would have left his body had he not had a barrier around it.

If souls could blush, the earl’s soul would burn hot pink at this point.

Sebastian bent down at an angle that most wouldn’t find themselves flexible at, all to rub his face into that belly of grey blue fur. The cat saw this as a playful gesture, clawing at the demon’s face and kicking gently with its hind legs. He chuckled, nuzzling a bit harder into the feline.

“You must be a masochist. No sane person would let a cat maul him like that,” Ciel scoffed.

“She’s not mauling, she’s playing,” the butler corrected, pulling his face away once the cat released its grip. It bumped its nose into Sebastian’s face before he got far enough, and he positively _blushed_.

“You’re embarrassing to watch.”

“I want to keep her forever,” he said, fingers unable to stop petting all over the cat.

“You’d have to feed and take care of it while you’re doing your demon things.”

“That is an easy task.”

“What about when you’re in hell? You can’t take it there.”

“True. However, the Russian Blue is a fiercely loyal breed, especially to one individual of whom it chooses. She has chosen me by allowing me to feed her and pet her stomach.” He had met with this cat numerous times before, too.

Ciel sighed in disgust.

“I think I’ll call her ‘Ciel’,” he smirked, petting her behind the ears.

Horror oozed out of Ciel’s soul. “You will do no such thing as to call such a lowly form my name!”

Sebastian tilted his head as he scratched underneath her chin. “And why not? Did you not call _me_ Sebastian after your family’s pet _dog_?” his lip curled upward in a sneer. “Dogs are much inferior creatures compared to these divine beings. If anything, calling her my young master’s name is a compliment.”

The cat seemed to hear something, perking up before jumping off and trotting away. Before she disappeared out of sight, she turned her head back to stare at the man who had given her a most bountiful meal that filled her belly over and over for many moons. This was a human she would not forget.

From a distance, the cat’s eyes appeared normal: a green standard to all other Russian Blues. However, when angled at a certain light, the most brilliant blue could be briefly caught. Never when she stared right at you. It was something you had to watch for, pray for, a mythical sight.

Sebastian’s eyes flashed red in return.

It was a shame that cats couldn’t live forever. He would breed this cat into oblivion so that it passed on those dazzling eyes and ridiculously magnificent blue-tinted earl grey hair.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ciel's soul is forced into a female's body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still away from home and typing on a notepad so sorry for mistakes 

Victoria was a sickly girl who wished for revenge on each and every child and worker who existed at the orphanage that brought her up. A normally simple task for the demon complicated by the complex process of human trafficking, several of the children she'd wanted revenge on they'd have to wait until they either turned up in Sebastian's searches, or had been proven to be dead. She wasn't happy with the mere idea that they could be dead; she wanted certainty.

Sebastian disliked having contracts with those who were homeless,but it couldn't be helped. He sometimes thought about building a manor specifically for his contracts that had no living arrangements, but then thought better of it. He'd seen how distracted a human could become when given something as substantial as that. It gave them too much hope and ambition for the future, and they'd try to put off whatever ailed them in favour of living life.

No sense in dragging out his servitude when he can watch his masters hang on by a thread just to see the job through.

"It appears you have a certain fondness for picking up contracts with young boys," Ciel remarked.

Sebastian scowled as he stood over his mistress's sleeping form, curled upon the cobble tucked into a corner of a less busy part of the town. He had draped his coat over the lady to protect her frail body from the elements.

"She is definitely not young," Sebastian countered. There was a brief moment of silence, surely the earl found it a surprise that this malnourished creature was female. Perhaps Ciel was just not used to seeing madams with a lack of bosom and androgynous features.

"And I'm _still_ surprised you decided to keep that wool coat that the Phantomhive manor supplied you," he continued to tease. Sebastian prickled with pride. It was a coat that he'd had to make numerous repairs to, seeing as there was no longer a Phantomhive manor to supply him with a new one. Shoving it into a Death Scythe was no longer something he saw himself sacrificing the coat over. It was the only physical object he had left from those days.

He went over the current information he had of the task he was supposed to accomplish: hunting down the missing persons. Leads were thin and not promising, but who would he be if not a demon who keeps his word?

His mistress was never harassed by those who walked by, so he took the time to seek out those leads while she slept. Ciel was good company and surprisingly helpful when it came to discussing the connections he'd acquired. 

Thirty-two individuals were marked off the list, and he brought proof of the bodies one by one to his contract, who approved with a bit of disgust in her eyes. Some people don't realise the magnitude of their desires until it's piled high in front of their face. It took weeks of work, and only three people remained.

.o

Victoria was going to meet the woman who tormented her in the orphanage today. Sebastian informed her that he had located the woman and was wondering if there were specific instructions for this woman. Victoria wanted a face-to-face before she watched the demon kill her, so that was the plan for mid-afternoon.

Currently, the girl was washing underneath a waterfall, too poor to afford even the most basics of hygiene as a bucket of water and a rag.

Sebastian saw himself raking his eyes over her back as she turned away from him. Her body was underdeveloped due to the malnutrition, giving her the appearance of a young boy... a flat chest, skinny legs and hips unsuitable for carrying healthy children, and short, black hair that had the same style as one earl of Phantomhive... An appraising look he sent her way, indeed. 

His imagination started to wander. He had bathed his young master countless times over, memorizing every inch of the child's surface. How beautiful it'd be to see him showered in an endless stream of water, harder to grip that wet skin as he pressed him into the bathroom wall, feeding off those pleads of _faster, Sebastian... oh yes, harder..._

Ciel, of course, was not pleased that Sebastian's attention lingered a bit too long on the woman's arse. The jealousy of this imp knew no bounds, that was for sure. Sebastian couldn't look at man or woman for too long before the earl told him to remain focused, almost as if he were a wife who couldn't stand her man looking at others.

The demon rightfully ignored the growing burning sensation in his stomach. He glanced at the contract seal marking her lower back. The little imp shot his way down into Sebastian's crotch.

"I don't need help with my libido, thank you," Sebastian murmured, refusing to take his eyes off of his contract to appease the immaturity of the soul inside him. He didn't wish for his mistress to see the tent in his pants and form any conclusions from his gaze upon her, so he willed the boner away.

The boner wasn't going away.

He blinked, looking down at his crotch, trying to redirect the blood flow.

"I'm not something that you can 'will away' when you want anymore, Sebastian," the little brat snickered.

"My, it seems as if the young master is honing his skills. You really shouldn't have this much control over even such a small part of my body as this."

The brat seemed pleased, soul swelling in warmth and pride. Still, there was the issue of the lump of distracting flesh throbbing uncomfortably in his pants.

Sebastian turned his body away so that Victoria wouldn't be able to see his inappropriateness when he called to her. "Miss, would you like for me to find a nice location for when I bring this person to you?"

She gasped, turning underneath to view him while running her fingers through her short hair. "Monty, that would be a lovely idea!" She smiled. Her gaunt face was nowhere near the boyish look that Ciel had. Her turning around ruined the illusion of it being his young earl.

Sebastian already had scoped out a location for the one-on-one encounter days ago. He needed to handle this raging boner now. He launched out of sight, finding a secluded location to bunker down, careful not to get his coat dirtied by nature. His pants unbuttoned to release the object of his frustration.

"Reduced to jerking off because no one else is allowed to touch you, hm?" Ciel whispered seemingly in his ear. 

"Incorrect," Sebastian breathed, wrapping a hand confidently around his pole, caressing the tip before setting a pace he found to his liking.

"Is she really what gets you off?" Ciel continued, watching with interest Sebastian's hand working diligently, his soul tingling with arousal at the sight. It was not often--never, in fact, that he'd seen the butler self-service before. There was a straightforwardness to it.

"No," the demon's breath drew shorter, eyes glowing intensely as thoughts began to paint themselves before his eyes.

"Or is it just the fact that you can't have me anymore that makes you lust over every prepubescent-looking individual that prays to god and devil alike for saving? Are you so desperate for my touch?"

Oh, if only the brat would stop speaking. It was causing painful spikes of arousal to drop from his stomach to his dick, forcing a groan out of him as he bent over to keep his hips from trembling too much. He planted his feet on the ground to strengthen his resolve.

"Hey, can females get impregnated by you?"

Hmmmm.... Sebastian hummed, working his hand up and down faster, hearing his master's question, but his mind was fogging up, lechery taking the reigns as he pictured his master perched upon his cock whilst hands were bound behind Ciel's back, the angelic features tinged with pain as he looked back and upwards to his butler. He bit his lips to suppress tiny, shameful moans.

_"What would your servants think if they saw you here, moaning like a bitch in heat? One of them is only a few doors away now..." he punctuated it with a needlessly vicious thrust that had Ciel yelping before ducking his head in embarrassment and oncoming fear at the thought of Baldroy, Finnian, or Mey-Rin rushing in to see why their lord had made such a distressing sound._

_"Now, that's not staying quiet... It's almost as though you_ want _to be caught," the demon grinned, eyes glowing and enjoying the wave of humiliation radiating from his master. The boy shook his head furiously, falling forward onto the bed so he could smother his face into the sheets and muffle the cries he could not with self control alone._

Ciel was frustrated that Sebastian wasn't responding to his questions, lost in his perverted thoughts. He let his anger be known in the form of a blistering wave of heat.

Sebastian gasped, jerked out of his fantasy as he suddenly came from a painful force that was like a vice grip of a pucker upon his dick. Unprepared, it splashed onto his chest and chin, leaving Ciel to laugh high and airy, swirling languidly inside of him, pleased that he'd caught his butler off guard for once. 

Sebastian grimaced, peeling off one of his gloves to carefully wipe away the mess and not smear it all over his clothes. Now that his groin was back under regulation, he could focus on the child.

"To answer your question, no. Most times a human female cannot become impregnated from a demon's seed. However, there are always exceptions, which, if the female could even survive birth, creates half demons known as hanyou."

Ciel reflected on the expression on Sebastian's face when he'd come. That look of pure surprise: eyes flaring and mouth open in an O shape. His cheeks weren't tinted with red but it was such a delicious look, Ciel found himself wishing to see it more often. A face outside of Sebastian's control was a rarity.

"Monty?" he heard Victoria summoning him. Giving himself a once over to make sure no essence remained on him, he set off.

.o

"I don't want to go into a female's body!" Ciel protested, trying to find a way to flee from Sebastian's pull as his hand summoned Ciel's soul out of his body.

"You've dressed as a female before; you should have no problem trying to be one for thirty minutes at the very least."

Ciel didn't have much of a choice as he was forced into the vessel anyway.

He felt unhealthy, weak(er), sickly as the female was in Sebastian's care. Not that Sebastian could have done much to restore the woman to her former glory--nor did he want to, obviously preferring the weak state of a woman whose form closely resembled one of his prior masters.

He groaned as he sat up, arms shaking. How did that woman ever even function when she could barely stand?! At least she'd cleaned herself before her demise. When they'd first come upon the femme, she'd reeked of a stench most foul.

Sebastian flipped him over onto all fours, pushing Ciel's head down so that he wouldn't have to look at the woman's face. 

"Oi! Give me a moment to get my wits about me!" Ciel shouted, wishing he could do more to get the demon to slow down. "I find it repulsive that you think it appropriate to stick me in someone so diseased."

"Come now, young master, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity."

A hand smoothed itself over the swell of one bare thigh, up under the baggy boy shorts Victoria had been wearing. 

"Sebastian!" Ciel shouted angry, legs wobbling even though he was in a stable all-fours position. "You're insatiable."

"Guilty," the demon chuckled in response, licking his lips as he enjoyed the view of what could have been his young master. Head bowed (thanks to his hand), lithe, skinny body that shook. Most likely from disease, but he could pretend it was from a strong desire to be sullied by his touch.

Ciel panted from the strain of being in this body alone. How did the bastard think he was going to enjoy himself if he was struggling to stay alive?!

The thin, raggedy off-white shirt was torn easily from his body as easily as the shorts were tugged off of his hips.

"As usual, please allow me to do the work for you," he licked the clean skin of Victoria's back from the back of her neck to the seal of her lower back, which was slowly dissipating as their contract was completed. His tongue traced the intricate symbol, which was always sensitive for anyone contracted. Imbibed with demonic power, it gave Ciel a much needed jumpstart.

He gasped lightly, lowering his torso to the ground so that he could push his arse backward into Sebastian's grip, delighting in that lighthouse of contentment amongst a stormy sea of aches and pains. 

Two holes were presented to Sebastian. He flicked at Ciel's anus, chuckling to himself when the boy made a high noise and jerked away, before focusing his attention on the hole meant for reproduction. He would have preferred the tight anus, but seeing as the boy wasn't happy in a female's body, might as well give him a little 'torture' for that boner incident.

He removed a glove, finger probing gently at the female anatomy. It gave Ciel pause from his displeased muttering as he experienced a foreign sensation between his legs. He rubbed the clit, almost wishing he could see Ciel's expression but at the same time wishing to preserve the image of what could be his master from behind. 

"What the devil are you doing?" Ciel muttered, pressing his face into his arms but otherwise letting Sebastian do as he pleased. His legs started to sweat, as with repeated ministrations, his groin became wet.

Finger gently brushed into the vaginal opening, spreading him further and further with skilled hands that became covered in juices. It was disturbing to Ciel however, being poked in a region he wasn't supposed to have. 

Suddenly the demon was reaching further into him with languid thrusts of his fingers.

"Look at you," Sebastian said, "So wet." The feelings were very foreign, and where Ciel's hand wanted to rub on what would surely be a wilting dick, he sighed frustratedly when all there was was the clit. He tried pinching it, but hissed when all it did was hurt.

"You'll never get anywhere treating your body like that," Sebastian tutted, swatting Ciel's hand away before it ruined any of the work he'd put in to getting the boy-in-femme-body to a state of arousal, which was difficult not only because of the sickness of the original host, but because Ciel himself didn't fancy it an enjoyable experience to be in a body of the opposite sex.

He adjusted his grip, moving from Ciel's head to his neck. "All you need to do is ask." His other hand positioned itself on Ciel's hip as he aligned himself up with Ciel's dripping entrance.

"Just shut up and stick it in me!" Ciel was so done with this.

"Yes, my lord," he entered smoothly, having stretched the opening enough to where it was a comfortable intrusion. Ciel's back arched, head drooping lower and stomach clenching. He refused to give Sebastian the satisfaction of hearing anything good from him, so he bit into his arm with less-than-great teeth, muffling them as best he could as Sebastian fucked him.

Sebastian didn't mind so much; the less noise Ciel made, the more he could fantasize that this was his master's body, since the voice didn't match up. He stared down gleefully at the underdeveloped body, twisting and curving with each ram of his hips. 

"Young master," he groaned hotly, bending down to press his nose into that silky black hair. Hands dragged down Ciel's sides, down under to his belly, upwards to those nonexistent breasts to fondle soft nipples that hardened under his fingers. He wished strongly that there was a cock for him to jerk in time to his thrusts, so that the earl might enjoy this more intensely, but he'd have to make do with a clit, to which he rubbed in a circle.

"Seb--" the boy choked, his strange orifice clenching and unclenching rhythmically as he climaxed. There wasn't a release like he was used to, rather a full body wash of muscles contracting over and over, a sensation that lasted much longer than his usual bout of ejaculation. His hips continued to jerk after it was over as Sebastian continued to thrust, seeking his own end.

He paused, pulling out of the vagina before pressing his length against the unprepared pucker. Ciel shrieked when it was forced in. Thankfully, this body's fluids helped facilitate a less painful entrance, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt. He could hear Sebastian's strangled gasps as he was now given the closest experience to having sex with his master. 

That tight ring of muscle clamped down tightly on his dick as it drove in and out. The moans were music to Ciel's ears as he coaxed an orgasm out of his stiff of a butler.

He stayed lodged inside of Ciel for longer than necessary, obviously enjoying his predicament more than he should have. The hot seed burned inside of Ciel, but his _other hole_ clenched with emptiness, and he wondered if it craved the seed to fill it instead.

"Seh... Sebastian," Ciel whimpered, body collapsing as it drained of energy further, too tired from the stress of copulation. 

"See?" the demon allowed himself to breathe for a few moments before removing himself and allowing his body to self clean the mess from his organ. "It wasn't so bad, was it?"

"If you ever put me in a woman's body again, I will find every way to make the rest of your eternal existence miserable."


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian wants Ciel’s original body back.

A human had a few different ways of harnessing magical powers. The simplest one was to collaborate with a magical creature for a common goal. However, few humans had been able to convince a magical entity to work with them. The second way, and most common, was to kill a magical creature and consume its flesh and blood. If the human survived—that is, if the meat and essence of the creature was not poisonous to the human—then the human would be filled with a portion of the creature’s magic. This gave way to all sorts of lore, be it spells, priestesses, sorcerers, what have be.

The process Sebastian needed to use was of human invention mixed in with magic. One would imagine that it was the work of divinity alone that allowed a human to be resurrected.

Resurrection was not always as simple as it was in his case. Most times, a Grim Reaper would have already collected the soul of the dead, making it impossible to truly revive the human. The body would be an empty husk, moving but without purpose. However, there are instances where a soul reincarnates before the Grim Reaper can reach it, or someone has stored the soul in a spell-bound object. A soul could be split into multiple objects, making it a more difficult challenge to both reap the soul and to bring the soul back together.

Thankfully, he had Ciel swirling about in his body, protected from those who wished to bring him forth for Judgment Day.

Currently not in a contract, Sebastian was free to wander as he wished. Not that he couldn’t under contract, but for what he must focus on, he decided to take a lacuna to reconstruct Ciel into his former body.

Sebastian could very well have continued to use future contracts’ bodies to satisfy his desire for the young earl— _not_ an obsession, by the way—but… why do that when he could have the young earl as he was?

Sebastian travelled to the Phantomhive Manor—no longer the Phantomhive Manor, but a building in which a wealthy individual now resided. He had observed the estate for two days to see when the best time for grave robbing would be, and midnight was where he was at now.

Ciel’s soul yearned and ached upon seeing his old stomping grounds, wishing desperately that they could tour it once again. Feelings of homesickness ceased to exist a few years into their cohabitation, but to return here after nearly a century ripped him open like a barely healed wound.

The gravestones of the young Earl’s parents still remained erect in the flower garden, which had been fabulously maintained since their departure. The flora was not of his master’s preference, but it was better than dead, wilted ones.

For all Ciel knew, his parents were angels by now, taken by the Grim Reapers and given fair judgment.

Not bad angels, though. Not the ones that tried to mindwipe the ‘unclean’. Good angels who watched down and watched with worried eyes hoping their son would survive. Unfortunately the bloodline ended with him, but… at least he’d had a dedicated demon to take care of him when no one else fit the job description well enough.

The third headstone, Ciel’s headstone, was erected when the building first went up in flames, and people could not find the missing boy. They assumed that he too had perished when he did not show up, hence the false resting place. However, when Ciel’s soul _was_ claimed by Sebastian, he made a point to bury the earl’s body here. The date of death was wrong, but technically, it would always be wrong so long as he kept passing the boy’s soul into different bodies. He didn’t think the list of deaths would fit that headstone.

His hand stabbed into the ground, demonic powers doing its work to lift the coffin, dirt above and all. It had been unmoved by weather, untouched by others who may want to steal any profitable items held within. The black and white box filled him with joy as he removed the lid to see the decayed body of a child he once held. Big eye sockets, thin little bones that had yet to grow, but no fractures, no cracks… pure, unmottled material for him to use.

The boy was oddly silent, uneasiness pulsing off of the soul as the demon went about his task.

Instead of removing the corpse, he dug up soil that surrounded him and deposited it into the coffin. He replaced the lid and made his way far away from London, not slowed down by the heavy container at all. Along the way, he snagged the neck of a Canadian goose, dispatching it quickly and lugging it along. He kept moving until he reached mountains, so isolated even animals rarely roamed.

Up and up he hopped, until he reached the entrance to a cave. The original inhabitant, a lone wildcat with an injured paw, found itself the unwilling pet of one cat-obsessed demon. Sebastian positively sparkled as he sat the coffin down and approached the wild feline.

“I have something for you, beautiful little kitten,” he proudly exclaimed.

It hissed as it did every time Sebastian came around, but quieted down when Sebastian offered it the dead bird. It bristled and tensed with wary eyes, but when Sebastian turned his focus away, it began to feast on it. Sebastian had fed this cat quite a few times, and he was beginning to suspect the cat was becoming more accepting of his presence. It might just be hissing out of habit more than anything. An injured cat was more reactive than a healthy one, after all.

He went back to the entrance to retrieve the coffin before moving deeper into the cave, far enough that this procedure would not threaten his little kitten’s life. It scampered away upon seeing the giant object hoisted in Sebastian’s arms, but returned to its food when he was out of sight.

Sebastian set the box down. The ground had already been layered with dirt, coal arranged in a circle to keep flames in and burning hot. There was half a clay structure in the center, sarcophagi-esque in nature. The bottom half was complete, and the top half was propped up against the walls. A couple of enchanted Flowers of Maryam layered the bottom to help facilitate the mending of earth to bone.

He began to take out some of the fertile soil from on top of the child’s body, enough to expose those bones, and began sprinkling it into the clay figure. A bucket of water sat near the wall; he poured a bit of this out onto the freshly laid soil, turning it into a muddy substance.

He gently, so carefully picked up the skeleton of the child and placed it into the bottom half of the clay sarcophagi, making sure to transfer all bones. It fit in the child-sized figure perfectly. Sebastian knew his master like the back of his hand, and would not think to build the sarcophagi any larger or smaller.

The remaining soil from his original gravesite was deposited on top of the child’s bones, more water sprinkled on top. At last, the top half of the clay sarcophagi was put into place. A single match was lit and thrown into the coal, and with his abilities, he managed to arise a billowing flame that would start the process of cooking his master his body anew.

The cave had another opening further ways down, so once he sealed this area off nearest to the wild cat, it could stay safe there as smoke filtered out on the other side. He would have to seal that side off, too, for the heat to remain high enough to bake the clay, but the rocks would be loose enough to let the smoke air.

God had once made a man from the dust of the ground. He breathed life through his nostrils. Sebastian supposed that he would be fanning the fiery smoke from hell into his creation.

It would take a month of stoking the flames and keeping tabs on it before the body was ready to harvest.

Whilst he waited the dreadfully long time for the earl’s body to kiln, he returned to his dominion in hell, idly pacing before stepping into one of the rooms. Embarrassingly, his residence was beginning to look more and more like the Phantomhive Manor. Ciel may not have been his longest contract, but it was the one he longed for the most. Things that looked a certain way in relation to the boy and the life he lived brought a tickle of pleasure to the demon, as well as more easily guiding his fantasies that involved the earl… being laid over the earl’s desk as he was plunged into from behind… in front of the earl’s brand new mirror so that the boy could see his own reflection and reactions as he was taken over and over again… on the bed, bound and gagged…

He’d saved all of the earl’s clothing despite knowing that it would cause mass confusion for anyone wondering of the earl’s earthly possessions. He did not forget that beautiful blue diamond ring, which sat, waiting for someone to fill it again… His fingers danced upon the high quality fabric of one of the boy’s blue capes, wondering if Ciel would be so kind as to wear these again once he lived again.

He would have to bring those cute little adornments up to him from hell, as a clay body certainly could not pass into Hell so easily. He would have to be so careful with these clothes, as they no longer made them in their current day and age. If the child so wished, perhaps he would dress in a more modern fashion. Or maybe he’d want things to stay as is.

His nose buried into that cape, inhaling long and hard to get a very faint whiff of his master. Centuries have rid the clothes of their owner’s scent, but Sebastian did his best to preserve them. Hence they maintained but a skosh of his master.

“What are you doing?” Ciel questioned, perturbed at the sight of his butler sniffing about his clothes like some…pervert!

“Mmm… When you are alive once more, what clothing would you like to wear first?”

.o

It was time. Sebastian dare say his heart leaped with anticipation.

The rocky blockade was removed on the wildcat’s side—mostly so that the beautiful felid would have more room to roam afterward. It had become quite amicable toward the demon, its fetching spots always holding Sebastian’s attention when it allowed him to pet it. Its paw healed without issue, and he saw it less and less with every visit. Thankfully, it wasn’t here this time around, so the loud noise of rocks falling would not scare it off.

However, there were kittens that _she_ now had to feed. Sebastian had made sure that they had ample amounts of food and protection. He had had to kill off many predators, big and small, to keep them safe, despite living in such a remote area.

Sebastian broke the ring of hot coals with a thick piece of wet wood, approaching the hot red sarcophagi carrying a single branch of rosemary, infused with his demonic magic. He allowed the frond to float onto the top of the sarcophagi, where it worked its magic.

Suddenly, the top of the clay structure shifted, and finally fell to the side. A pale hand had moved it, temporarily unaffected by the heat thanks to the devil’s magic. A nude boy slowly rose, staring without purpose forward, looking at nothing.

Ciel was so quiet. Sebastian could only grin.

He stepped into the hot soil, not minding the heat as he took the fresh body into his arms. The body was magnitudes hotter than any human could tolerate, but once it cooled down and set, he would be just as vulnerable to the threats of human life as any other mortal.

Sebastian had arranged a thick wool blanket for the kittens but also one for his master’s body. Ciel’s body was set down on his back, opposite to the litter. The boy looked as he did a century ago, soft facial features of pure royal blood lineage. The only thing missing were the markings. The branding that once tarnished his side, gone. Sebastian stared cheerfully into the boy’s eyes, both of which were blue.

Ciel seemed to express some satisfaction with this. He wasn’t living life as the Earl of Phantomhive anymore. He could just be ‘Ciel’ now… or anyone he wanted to be… just with a demon for a butler who was no longer bound by a contract, yet insisted upon referring to him as “my Lord” and “young master” anyway. Almost like he _enjoyed_ being a slave.

While waiting for the body to cool, Sebastian sat next to the pile of kittens, playing with them with a disturbing level of enthusiasm. The body would blink and twitch as though someone was there, but in reality, no one was home and this was much like salted dancing frog legs. Until a soul was in there, it was purely a puppet.

Sebastian knew he shouldn’t be playing with the cats, as Ciel would surely have an allergy fit, but, if this was the last time he were to see them…

It was roughly forty minutes before Sebastian deduced it was cool and safe enough to bring the body to life.

“Are you ready, young master?” Sebastian asked, carefully guiding the sleeping kittens from his lap back onto the comfy blanket before standing.

“Nn,” was the response. The soul was blank, impossible to read as Sebastian pulled Ciel from his body. The dark blue soul slid into the body with ease, and the effects were immediate. Those long lashes fluttered, chest rising as his first breath of life was taken in his own body.

For several minutes, the earl just breathed, fingers clenching and unclenching the soft fabric beneath him. Sebastian remained crouched at his side, drinking in every movement with interest. The scent of his master was now detectable, growing stronger with each breath.

Finally, the eyes that stared forward now shifted, flicking up to the butler’s face. Sebastian shuddered; what a demure gaze, eyelids blinking slowly, as though sedated.

The resurrection was a complete success.

“Are you—“ the boy started, but stopped when he heard his voice in his own ears. It sounded much louder to speak in real life than speaking from his soul.

Sebastian leaned in, eyes predatory and sharp teeth just exposed in a barely reserved grin. “Yes?”

“Are you done gawking?” Ciel managed to say, eyes closing again as he simply basked in the act of living.

“Hmm. I suppose so.” Sebastian stood, gathering a set of clothes from many pairs he’d brought back from his living space. He wanted to ogle the Earl’s naked, breathing body longer, but it was only a matter of time before his young master might catch a chill.

He proceeded to dress the earl, piece by piece, as he once did when they were bound by contract. Ciel cracked his eyes open a sliver, just to observe the butler sliding on his clothes. He’d decided to start from the lower half, lifting his legs to slide on boy shorts, raising his arse to wiggle them onto his pelvis. They sat snuggly, perfectly, his body not having aged a day since its death. Socks, sock garters clicked on, shoes with heels that had barely seen wear from walking, shoelaces.

The butler lifted him into a sitting position as he applied the boy’s undershirt, buttoned it steadily, then his vest, coat jacket, cape, tie.

He hesitated, so minute but Ciel caught it, before sliding on the blue diamond ring.

Sebastian leaned back a bit, taking in the view of his master, unchanged all these years aside from minor details. He was missing an eyepatch, but since the seal was gone, there was no need to hide a purple blemish.

But best of all, to feel the fire of the soul, the presence of it in the boy’s body, reignited a long forgotten hunger that wasn’t satiated by any other soul he’d hunted after. The best part was that he could consume it at any point, as it was rightfully his, regardless of what body it was contained in. This was where he would practice his skills in patience, much like one would deny themselves an orgasm for a bigger reward.

Soft padding was heard from the entrance. Ciel looked up to see that the mother wildcat had returned. It froze, sniffing the air before its eyes caught up to see the foreign body.

The cat was not happy with this new presence, feeling it a threat to her offspring. She hissed and spat, arching her back and puffing her fur out. Sebastian tutted, bravely walking up to the cat and squatting down. It jumped and attempted to bat at the demon with claws extended, but Sebastian did not mind a scratch. He hooked his finger underneath the wildcat’s chin and began to scratch. It chose not to bite him, which said something strongly about its comfort levels around him, and quieted itself. However, it still regarded Ciel as a threat and chose to keep a healthy distance between the boy, even with a still healing paw.

“I do not wish to stress this cat any more than it needs to. Come, I will take you to a place more inhabitable.” He wished dearly to take a kitten for his own, to raise it, but he knew the mother would be needed to raise something as feral as a wildcat. He didn’t know when he would next see the cat again, so he approached the wildcat mother and nuzzled her, embracing her and petting her until she purred.

Ciel watched awkwardly, his butler reduced to a puddle by this small creature. Trying to understand the butler’s position, he thought of his dog, Sebastian, and how he would hug onto the big dog’s body and enjoy its warmth. Tilting his head, he felt himself resigning to the butler’s need to indulge in a parting moment.

When he felt satisfied, he stood and whisked Ciel off of his feet. The boy held onto the butler’s coat for dear life, and they launched off the cliff.

Sebastian hummed. That launch wasn’t as strong as it used to be. Even though he had planned to leap 200 feet in a single bound, it was 150 feet this time, and he found himself nearly stumbling when his feet landed on an awkward structure of rock. He made sure that his master was safe either way, adjusting his handling before jumping again, still falling short of the sort of bounds he could have done before. Perhaps it was because of carrying his young master, but the body to him was as light as a feather. He’d mull on it later.

This was not the most ideal moment to fly. Having just found physical gravity to affect him again, sudden movements were not his friend. Despite being in a not-truly human body, Ciel felt his stomach drop just as it would when he was alive before as they descended from the mountains. Each jump had his tummy roiling, and if he’d eaten prior to flying, he was sure he would have vomited on the butler by now. He sneezed many times on the way, allergies apparently still carrying over. The wind bit at his face, and he pressed his face into Sebastian’s chest in an attempt to shield himself.

It was within a demon’s power to blend in and coexist with humans. If not provided with a job that supplied it, a demon could generate money of their own. Ciel had been taken to a fancy old inn that had stood for more than a century, thick wooden walls still sturdy and beautiful despite the changing world around it.

He set the boy down and paid for a room spanning an entire month, taking great delight in assisting the boy to walk up a flight of stairs to the second floor. Not having to walk for so long, he may have forgotten exactly how to walk.

How he wished to take his master. So debilitated, so vulnerable. But he would wait. He wanted his young master to get used to his new doll-like body before he made any moves. He was a patient individual. He could wait.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian has a new contract that tests Ciel's limits.

Ciel had observed the world evolving alongside Sebastian, but the effects of the world didn’t have an impact on him until he was put into this body. With the boom of the automobile industry, the air was no longer as cleanly as it was during his first life. His asthma was aggravated a few times a week, leaving him to stay in the inn for the rest of the day or allow hours of rest in-between outings.

Walking was a learning experience. When he first tried to walk up the stairs, he failed miserably, Sebastian there to catch him every step of the way, though. It was slightly humiliating to find himself even _more_ dependent on the devil than before, requiring to be carried now instead of being able to walk on his own.

Rehabilitation was a slow but steady process. Ciel never had strong muscles to start with, so that added an additional factor to the challenge, but the days went on and he was walking himself to and from the bathroom (which had plumbing!). Exploring the outside world became enjoyable once he wasn’t required to be carried.

He was able to smell food again, exotic scents that never existed in his time. Perfumes from cheap to high end, marketplace bustling, the welcome smell of nature…

Near the end of their paid stay at the inn, Sebastian had caught himself another contract. Ciel wasn’t there to witness it, as he was no longer in Sebastian’s body, and it occurred at night, so it was a surprise when he was awoken and told that they were relocating.

They were brought to a giant residence, similar in overwhelming stature to his own manor in his past life. A boy with short black hair and green eyes stood in the center of the grand foyer, eyes lighting up as he recognized the demon whom he was now bound with a contract.

“Sebastian!” the boy cried with an accent that Ciel recognized as one from his time period. He ran up to the demon and in an almost tackle, embraced him. The demon didn’t react on the outside. Ciel tilted his head. The human that created the contract was the one to pick the name of the demon, so why was it still ‘Sebastian’?

“Ciel, this is my young master, Alois Trancy,” Sebastian introduced.

Ciel’s eyes widened and then narrowed as his brain started working. He had read of the Trancys back in his time, how the family had been murdered, and how an entire village was desecrated. And then a boy known as Alois Trancy appeared, claiming he was related to the fallen lineage.

That was in _his_ time period. What was this boy doing here over one hundred years later?

“And this is my companion, Ciel,” Sebastian turned to the young earl, a small grin on his face. “He would be a great addition to your collection of servants.”

Ciel wanted to object right then and there, but Alois grabbed onto his hand and shook too aggressively. “Nice to meet you! I am sure we are going to have a lot of fun!”

.o

He was not having ‘a lot of fun’.

In fact, he wanted to beg Sebastian to take his soul just so he wouldn’t have to deal with Alois anymore.

Alois would not _stop touching him_. The boy had no concept of personal space! Whenever he tried to hide in one of the many rooms, the boy seemed to take it as a hide-and-seek challenge and made it his day to find him.

“You have such pretty eyes,” the Trancy boy said, staring intensely into Ciel’s own. The boy was playing with his hair, and Ciel had to bite his lip to keep himself from snapping.

He couldn’t finish dusting the library with this boy tugging and interrupting every second of his duties. Sebastian had taken on most of the work, as he’d done when he was slave to the earl, and had delegated light activities to the earl so that he could keep up the appearance of being useful. However, it appeared that the Trancy boy saw him more as a toy than as a servant.

“Can I please finish dusting this room… Lord Trancy?” Ciel gritted out, patience dwindling by every second he was forced to hang around with the black haired tart.

“Cleaning is boring… Let’s play a game!” Alois yanked Ciel by the hand, forcing him to stumble forward and drop the duster he’d been carrying. The boy started dancing in a circle, a bit too quickly for Ciel’s feet to keep up with, unpracticed in this wild, ruleless ‘game’ of Alois’s. He was beginning to feel nauseous, so he tried pulling away, but the boy was stronger despite having a similar frame.

Ciel gripped at Trancy’s wrist to yank the hand held hostage by Trancy, and in the process of slipping out of his grasp, tagged the brilliant golden ring on Alois’s finger and pulled it off with him.

All of it stopped. The life drained from Alois’s green eyes and his movements relaxed until his legs gave out and he fell face first onto the ground.

The earl stood there for a moment, wondering if he should relish the silence and get back to his duties or if he should do something. Did the boy have narcolepsy?

Sebastian had a general approximation of where the two boys were, and when he felt distress from Alois through their contract and the sudden disappearance of his soul, he dropped the couch he was instructed to move, to make his way toward their location.

When he entered the room, Ciel looked up at his butler.

“Did you manage to kill the boy already?” Sebastian’s face was truly puzzled when he saw that the boy was there but his soul was not.

“All I did was pull away from him. He fell on his own,” Ciel spat, walking away from the body now that Sebastian was there. He picked up his duster and continued the original task, not wanting to show any concern he might have felt over this troubling situation.

Sebastian approached Alois’s body, not detecting any signs of life. He rolled the boy over onto his back, picking up the ring that laid beside him and inspected it. It glowed with an unearthly energy. Having a hunch, he lifted the boy’s right hand and slid the ring back on.

Just like that, he began breathing again.

Ah.

It was like the boy had never been down. He stood up quickly, a look of fury crossing his face.

“You did that on purpose!” He shrieked at Ciel, who was minding his own business dusting another row.

“Did what?” he muttered back.

“Tried to kill me!”

Ciel sputtered as he tried to hold back a laugh. The Trancy kid was all sorts of messed up.

“As punishment, give him a spanking!”

What? Ciel turned away from what he was doing to give Alois a look of incredulity. Seeing this, the kid smirked evilly.

“I shall do so once we get you taken care of, yes?” Sebastian offered with a smile, moving toward the boy.

“No! Now, and here!” Alois shouted. His lord’s word was absolute.

Sebastian froze, mind churning and chuckling internally when he felt horror radiating from his young earl behind him. He turned around, smile still on his face.

“You can’t be serious…” Ciel said in disbelief. He backed away as Sebastian progressed, until his back hit the patterned wall. He looked like a dear in the headlights, tickling Sebastian’s predatory instincts.

But then the child huffed, closing his eyes and strengthening his posture. “Fine. Get it over with.”

Sebastian picked Ciel up, who gave an undignified squawk, and carried him over to a chair. The butler sat down and draped Ciel over his lap so that his arms hugged one outer thigh and his legs pressed against the other, arse in a comfortable position for swatting at.

Green eyes burned into him. Sebastian gave Ciel’s bum a light tap and then turned his head to stare at Alois.

Alois crossed his arms with a look of disapproval.” You’re not funny, Sebastian.”

The demon sighed, feigning exasperation. He readjusted his gloves to sit better on his hand. That tap was more to assuage Ciel that he wasn’t interested in actually hurting him. Reality?

Sebastian smacked his hand against Ciel’s arse with the force of a thousand horses. The boy jumped forward, trying to escape with nowhere to go, saddled over the demon’s legs as he reigned smack after smack upon his delicate arse. No matter which way he twisted or turned, he couldn’t escape the wrath of that hand. In fact, moving too much made the impacts land on his thighs, which were more sensitive than his bum.

No amount of layers of cloth between his hand and the earl’s arse could stop the pain from being dealt. He cried and squealed, and Sebastian took silent pleasure in hearing noises he’d never heard the earl make before. He archived those noises to help supplement his personal fantasies later on…

It was only a minute of spanking but by the end of it, the earl had been brought to tears. He could hear Alois’s obnoxious laughter, and that only made his face burn brighter with humiliation.

“Shut up,” Ciel muttered, hanging his head away from the tart so he couldn’t see the tears.

“Oh, what’s that?” Alois leaned in, cupping a hand to his ear. “Is that insubordination I hear? I think he needs twenty more lashings!”

Ciel _hated_ Alois.

.o

“Why did he contract you, anyway?”

Sebastian rubbed the oil on the sore, red skin of the poor earl’s bum. He whined, muscles clenching from the pain. The demon promised that it would help with the raw burning. He kneaded it into the soft fat, amused to see Ciel squirming under his touches.

_“You didn’t have to hit that hard!” Ciel cried out._

_“It was what the young lord wished,” his voice carried a lilt of humour in it, which Ciel_ very much _did not appreciate as he walked his smarting ass across the manor into Sebastian’s quarters._

“The young lord wishes for me to kill a demon by the name of Claude Faustus. Logically, this is not the demon’s real name, but one that Alois Trancy supplied when he’d asked for the services of a demon the first time.” Sebastian poured more oil into his hand, and began to massage the other cheek, squeezing gently even as the boy hissed.

“First time? If he had a contract with this demon, how is it that his soul appears to be in that ring of his?” As the oils took effect, lessening the pain, Sebastian’s ministrations began to feel almost pleasant. He hated the hands that could deal so much pain could also draw out such pleasure.

“That, I am unsure of. Perhaps this Faustus demon will be able to supply the answers if the young lord does not.” He felt as the boy began to press into his touch instead of wriggling away. He grew bolder, pawing more firmly at that ample butt. Ciel sighed, shoving his face into his arms and allowing himself to relax. Life in the Trancy household was giving him more stress than he’d ever had to deal with. If he didn’t know his limits before, he knew them now.

“Why did you have to pick such an insufferable tart?” he lamented, tilting his hips up in approval. The butler didn’t respond to his question, hands stroking up and down the exposed thighs, groping at that supple skin.

“Mmmhh…”

“Is this an invitation?” Sebastian whispered, fingers skimming upward and just barely connecting with the boy’s sac. He wiggled his arse in agreement.

Sebastian took the initiative; more oil applied to his fingers before he touched that cute pucker. Ciel gasped, tensing as the demon began to press inward. He’d never been entered in there by the demon in his original body… While he was used to being ravished in different bodies, to have his own body tainted, feeling all the ways he should feel inside this body, it was… a moment of reality.

“You must relax yourself, young master,” Sebastian murmured. Ciel didn’t realise how tense he’d been, and tried to calm himself but his muscles kept reflexively contracting as Sebastian tried to venture his finger further.

“I… am trying,” he got out, but his body refused to cooperate.

The demon pulled back. He gripped at Ciel’s body and flipped him over on his bed, getting a good look at Ciel’s reactions and how the boy seemed to curl inward in sudden self-consciousness.

“Perhaps we should not start with that, as it is new for you in this form,” he suggested.

Ciel had expected the demon to simply claim him as he’d done on multiple other occasions in different bodies. He couldn’t help but feel greatly appreciative of the demon’s consideration for what his body had been saying versus what his mouth was speaking. “…Un.”

Wet clawed fingers traced the delicate contours of the boy’s body. They were unhurried, traveling without purpose. They poked at sensitive areas and groped at others.

“I want to taste your soul,” Sebastian said, hand enclosing around the boy’s neck. Not tight enough to cut off the air supply, but…

“You mean like, eating my soul? Wouldn’t that kill me in this body?” Ciel stuttered, eyes tracking Sebastian’s moves with curiosity and unease.

The demon smirked. “There are more ways than one to get a taste. Sperm, for one,” he flicked at Ciel’s prick, which gave an interested twitch and a glare from Ciel. “But also tears,” he licked at Ciel’s face, and the boy batted at Sebastian’s head to get him away, “mm… sweat, and blood.”

“What are you, a vampire?” Ciel gasped ridiculously.

“No, but… it is a simple way to get what I am desiring.” After a long day of being in the Trancy household, he craved more than ever to be in Ciel’s presence. He wasn’t a sex fiend by any means, it was just that lust had a stronger impact on him than, say, happiness. It was more filling, more satisfying.

“What happens if you drink all of my blood?”

The demon chuckled. “Then you die, of course. But I’m not asking for that much.”

“…Fine,” the boy relented, and was fascinated by how the demon’s face went from impassivity to the definition of hunger as he dragged his face along Ciel’s young skin, pressing gentle kisses on his chest, legs, hips. Ciel’s face began to burn with embarrassment at this overly affectionate display.

Sebastian was scoping for a good place to nibble on whilst avoiding an overt place that would raise questions. He decided upon his young master’s inner arm. He sucked at the skin in multiple areas, pulling the blood toward the skin and leaving the areas to bruise lightly, amused as he felt the boy quivering. His inner arm _was_ sensitive when the right kind of touch was applied, after all.

Fangs bared, he bit in nearest to the boy’s armpit. The boy winced, but otherwise didn’t react as the demon began to feed.

Sebastian didn’t need to breathe, but the earl definitely heard the noisy sounds of the demon’s deepening breaths.

Eyelashes fluttered over intense red eyes, and one hand began to wander without much thought, finding its way around and underneath the young boy to embrace and draw him closer to the butler while the other held the arm away from his body.

“S-Sebastian,” Ciel stammered, strangely aroused. His body was pressed solidly against his demon’s, enjoying the way the demon’s body shuddered as he huffed. He wrapped his legs around the other’s waist, soaking in the increasing heat radiating from the demon.

He wasn’t sure what to do with his free hand. At first he grabbed at Sebastian’s shoulder, before he felt himself wilting when it wasn’t fine black wool he was gripping at. He was still upset that the Trancy boy had Sebastian remove his Phantomhive suit in exchange for a more modernized version, one lacking the tailcoat, leaving Sebastian with only a vest and undershirt with tie. Of course, Sebastian could wear it any time outside of the house, but when they were together, the lack of familiar clothes reminded him of where they were, what their situation was, and how much he hated that black-haired freak.

Instead, he ran his fingers through the butler’s hair, petting as though the demon was one of the cats the creature was so captivated by. The butler openly moaned, mouth pulling away from the damaged skin to lap at the blood, squeezing his master tighter.

He missed this. He missed Ciel’s scent, Ciel’s figure, Ciel’s warmth, Ciel’s contact. This was a reminder that he was indeed real and not just a puppet. Finally satisfied that this was not the fantasy, the wishful thinking, but of the true essence of his master.

He wanted to keep feeding until Ciel was dry. Taking it all like he took Ciel’s soul. He didn’t have to worry about anything when his soul was property now. Didn’t have to rush things, didn’t have to scarf down his meal. Even after indulging on Ciel’s soul the first time, he was a meal that could be regurgitated and reconsumed without diminish in the taste.

Sebastian kissed the still bleeding area, pressing his head into Ciel’s touch, making a noise of approval and closing those ruby eyes to bask in his master’s aura. He released Ciel’s arm but recaptured it when his fingers interlaced with Ciel’s, pulling his hand up to a more comfortable position near his head. He rolled onto his side, other arm still underneath Ciel so that he kept the boy in his embrace. He pressed a leg between those naked legs, not to titillate, but to get more comfortable.

Ciel was still burning hot from his butler’s actions, but instead of feeling the need to release that arousal, the energy became a less urgent priority over the uncharacteristic look the demon was giving him.

Sebastian had a bit of blood still on his chin. The earl wiped it off with his finger and let out a startled giggle when Sebastian’s mouth captured that finger, tongue laving about it to remove the blood. Ciel pulled his finger back but sharp teeth clung to it, preventing removal.

“Oi, stop that,” Ciel said half-heartedly, blushing when his finger was released with a wet pop.

Suddenly, the demon stiffened, and in a blur, Ciel found his clothes back on and the butler dressed as though they hadn’t been cuddling and, dare Ciel say, bonding.

Ciel didn’t have time to ask as there was a knock on the door and the black-haired Alois Trancy looked in.

“Sebastian!”

First the Trancy boy disrespected his day life and now he was interfering with his night life?

What? What could he _possibly_ want now?

“I had a nightmare and want to sleep with you,” he declared.

Hell no.

Ciel moodily got off the bed and began to stalk his way toward the door.

“Why are you leaving?” Alois asked.

“You wanted to sleep with him.”

Alois huffed, putting a hand on his cocked hip. “There’s no reason we can’t all share the same bed.”

Ciel cringed.

To hell with this whole ‘living’ thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote an interlude and stuck it between Chapters 4 and 6! Sebastian and his love for cats of the blue grey variety.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reapers make Sebastian's task difficult.

The sneezing went on all morning.

Sebastian was allowed to keep _cats_ in the Trancy household. Not just any cats, by the way. The feral kittens that had been found in the cave were now bounding about the manor, tearing things up, hissing, spitting, pissing. Sebastian was a diligent cleaner, however, and repaired and cleaned where needed.

Alois found Sebastian’s conviction toward cats hilarious. It turned the stoic butler into a melted pot of honey, and even the butler’s treatment toward the boy turned softer, more caring, when he had the felines nearby. Ciel had never seen the demon smile so much when serving.

Perhaps if he weren’t allergic to cats, he may have permitted one or two just to satisfy the butler, but alas.

Ciel resorted to wearing a mask at first. Sebastian, seeing his master suffering, did feel a bit guilty for what his beauties did to the boy. He enjoyed seeing the boy in moments of terror, horror, disgust, and lust, but suffering from ailments wasn’t on his list. After hearing him sneeze that entire morning, and even struggling for breath, he made it a point to keep tabs on where the cats roamed, and restricting them to certain rooms. He was currently trying to get Alois’s approval to install a sort of ‘cat door’ so that the felines could roam about certain rooms without having to go into the hallway, which the earl traveled most frequently. He would be able to monitor and control which doors the cats went through so that if Ciel needed to clean a certain room, the cats were locked out of said room. He also made sure to give a general sweepdown of each room touched by cats at morning and in the middle of the day so that allergies weren’t as distressing.

He’d be damned if he had to give up his cats, though. That was one thing he appreciated his new master for over the earl.

.o

“Sebastian, lift this giant pot of flowers.”

The butler lifted it with ease, breaking nary a sweat.

Alois found it amusing to watch the butler lift, heavier and heavier, larger and larger, until it was a comical sight to watch. The excuse of redecorating. The kid was not restructuring things in a fashion that Sebastian would call pleasing to the eye, but his master’s desires were his to fulfill. If he wanted an ugly yard, so be it.

“Lift that statue.”

The statue was magnitudes heavier than the butler. He planted his feet firmly into the ground, gripping the marble, and pulling it upward. He blinked, noticing his arms start to waver. This was… much heavier than he was expecting.

Nonsense! He’d lifted marble statues much larger than this without issue!

“I want you to move that tree over there.”

Of course, it was the largest tree on the estate. Sebastian squatted, fingers stabbing into the bark, and he attempted to uproot it from the ground. It stayed where it was.

“Oh? Have we found your limits?”

This was impossible. He had moved forces far beyond this simple structure.

“It appears, young master, that the tree simply wishes to stay where it has grown all its life!” Sebastian said cheerily, but inside he was bereft with worry.

He had consumed many souls before this contract, and even without Ciel inside of him, he’d still had the power of Olympic gods to use as he pleased on the land of the living. To find himself with diminished power was a serious concern.

At least the kid hadn’t seen him with the height of his power; he may not know that this display was rather lackluster.

.o

Claude Faustus was not easily found. Most times, it was a demon’s choice to be detected. They could hide their signature and appear as nothing more than a human, as was often the case when roaming the mortal world.

Sebastian had spent weeks in the night traveling cross country, visiting every large estate and knocking upon the doors, hoping to find another dressed as he’d been. Alois claimed Claude wore what he was wearing now, but that didn’t mean he’d stick to it if their master decided for a change in décor.

The possibility of Claude keeping his name was nigh as well, but there was no harm in asking if anyone by the name of ‘Claude Faustus’ resided in the building, and gauging the reaction from there.

A demon who sat comfortably in the residence they habituated during their contract would allow their signature to spread, a way of marking their territory, letting other demons know to keep away, lest they wish to mate or fight to the death.

On this particular night, Ciel rode in his arms. The full moon graced their silhouette with light as they bounded across the land.

His young master sighed, hands gripping the butler’s clothes and cozying himself into a navy blue wool coat supplied by the Trancy residence. He was out with Sebastian upon request, needing more than anything distance from that manor. Every two or three days, a night out to reset himself. Tired, but he would stay awake.

They travelled faster than any mode of normal transportation could get them. Sebastian had heard of a boy and his _butler_ in Poland whilst investigating on the border of Germany and Poland. Butlers were a rarity in such a poor country. He’d exhausted the entirety of Germany and Belgium, so naturally, Poland was his next area of canvassing. In the dark of night, it was much easier to get to where he needed to be. An hour one way with his powers. He was getting slower, and he knew it, a disturbing reality that was giving him less time to research.

They reached Schwedt, a quieter town thanks to the reunification of Germany. The boy complained of the need to relieve his bowels, so Sebastian stopped at one of the abandoned oil refineries that thankfully had plumbing despite the ancient look.

Afterward, the pair continued their travel. They approached the Oder River with all intents on crossing it, when the calm waters erupted in a flurry of red.

“Fancy meeting you here, Sebas-chan~!”

“What do you want, Grell?” This was cutting into valuable time hunting down Claude so that the contract would conclude.

“I was just coming to collect this body who found her end at the bottom of the river, but then I sensed a soul who has been _very naughty_ ,” he stared haughtily at Ciel. “You’re long overdue to be reaped, dear!”

This was an unforeseen issue. Of course, Ciel’s soul had been scheduled for death long ago, but after the demon had consumed it, he assumed that that was the end of it, regardless of whether he brought the soul out of him into the mortal world or not. Apparently not.

“You’re over one hundred years old!” the red-haired grim reaper exclaimed, revving up his chainsaw of a scythe. “You’re well beyond your prime and yet…” he drew forward smoothly. “You appear so youthful! Do share your secrets for eternal youth!”

“I’ll gladly tell you,” Sebastian smiled toothily, placing his master down gently before launching himself at Grell. “But it requires you to die in order to stay youthful!”

The reaper laughed. “If it’s by your hands, I think I might have to take you up on your offer!”

The two supernatural beings danced in the night, clashes of metal on metal in a tornado of skills. Normally, finding a way to end the match quickly was easy for Sebastian when it came to Grell, who was a master of execution but not at all forms of tact, which Sebastian had centuries of experience in.

However, he found his movements lagging. He came dangerously close to losing skin and blood to that monstrous machinery, clothes being nicked and torn by the fast moving chain. To Ciel, it might have looked like he was intentionally damaging his clothes as some sort of rebellion against the Trancy kid, but in reality, it was because he was seriously lacking in the energy he used to have.

Demons didn’t become weaker as they aged. Quite the opposite, demons exploded in power.

“Sebastian, why are you being such a letdown today?” Grell queried, jabbing his chainsaw forward and successfully making contact with the demon’s side, enthused to see a spray of dark blood illuminated by the moonlight. “It’s like you’re trying to lose! I want to see you at your very best, giving me your all and thrusting your hand passionately in and out of me till my screams wake everyone in the neighbourhood! We’d have to hide, as our love is still forbidden, but people understand that a girl bleeding during her first time is a sign of her purity! Oh~, _take me Sebastian_!”

The butler cringed, feeling his side weep with blood as he jumped away from the screw loose reaper.

The reaper’s eyes gleamed as he hacked and hacked. The injury on Sebastian seemed to slow him down substantially, his body working to repair it and it _wasn’t healing_. The red head was getting way too close to Ciel for Sebastian’s comfort, and that chainsaw was going _straight for his neck_ —

Sebastian pulled Ciel to his body before making a great bound across the Oder River. At the same time, he focused on sucking that soul out of his body, not making a show out of it or attempting to savour the flavour. He absorbed it just as the grim reaper’s weapon quickly approached. It did make contact with Ciel’s body, shattering the fragile skin and dissecting with ease. His master’s red essence splattered all over his face and clothes

The demon’s eyes widened as he landed on the ground, holding a bloody corpse of his former master.

“What a dirty trick!” the reaper lamented. “That’s totally against the rules!”

“Yes, you cannot collect a soul once it’s within a demon’s body.” Sebastian smirked, feeling Ciel’s panicked soul bounding about in his chest. The last thing the soul had seen before being absorbed was impending death, and even though the boy could maintain a calm exterior in the face of fatal circumstances, inside his soul spoke the truth. Sebastian would calm the boy later.

“I can still rid the world of a nuisance like you, Sebby!” Grell’s face took on a warped smile, green eyes glowing in the darkness as he stalked toward Sebastian.

Sebastian was still bleeding, and now burdened with his master’s corpse, he could have tried to flee, but he was worried about his diminishing strength and sapped of speed. Instead, he did what demons prided themselves on: manipulation.

“You would rid the world of someone like me?” the demon gasped, pushing the dismay and sadness as best he could through his voice. His eyes widened, artificial tears welling up at the corners of his eyes. Eyebrows furrowed, lips turned downward and slightly quivering. The effect was instantaneous on the eccentric red head.

“Y-yes, but also, because I _have_ to, my dear demon!” he explained, still swinging that chainsaw left and right.

“There are always exceptions to the rule,” he tried, tilting his head back so that the moonlight hit his face in just the right ways. He allowed perspiration to form on his head, causing his skin to glimmer. “Would you rather hang my head on the wall, never to make another beautiful expression?” he gave the reaper a heavy-lidded look, mouth slightly parting with a faint gasp. The red head was wriggling more than ever.

“Nnnn, Sebas-chan, stop teasing me, or you’ll make my panties drop!”

“Or would you rather have a man who can move in any way you desire?” He cocked his hips. He was glad that grim reapers were just as susceptible to demonic manipulation as humans were.

Grell clung onto Sebastian, but Sebastian shrugged him off. “I must heal and bring my master back to health. That will make me happy. And when I’m happy, I tend to… pose.”

“Pose?!” Sebastian knew that there were a million different nauseating images running through the grim reaper’s mind from that alone.

“Yes… now would you mind?” he tilted his head off in Germany’s direction. “I really must be going.”

“Oh, yes, YES! I eagerly await our next meeting.” He winked and blew him a kiss. Sebastian gagged internally at how inappropriate this being was. The reaper launched himself into the sky, sounds of sighs and gasps of a most inappropriate nature following him.

Sebastian looked down worryingly at his young master’s corpse. The body was beyond salvageable by normal methods of treatment. He would have to rekiln the body.

“Would you have let him do that to my body if you couldn’t reclaim my soul?” Ciel asked from within.

“Of course not, young master,” Sebastian responded with a huff. What a silly question.

“Could you have avoided him destroying my body?”

In any other circumstance, he would have said ‘yes’ without a second thought. But evaluating his current predicament, he wasn’t certain.

For a brief moment, as he was walking, he saw a flash beside him. He stared at it, brain analyzing that less-than-a-second image. His brain must be tricking him, for it couldn't possibly have been the face of the boy he was carrying now. He shrugged it off, chalking it up to the strange happenings going on with his body currently. Maybe hallucinations were something he could experience now.

In any case, he was wondering how he would explain to Alois the disappearance of one blue-eyed servant.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian bonds and finds what he's looking for.

The night after the run in with Grell, Sebastian took time off from the search to begin the process of resurrection again high in the mountains.

Alois didn’t take the news lightly.

_“Ciel is currently healing from a grievous injury that befell him on one of my nightly searches. It will be roughly a month before he can return to his duties.”_

_Alois looked as though he were struggling to decide which he should display: anger or sadness. He considered Ciel a friend, of all things, despite the boy’s disdain for the Trancy. He did not handle loneliness well, even after knowing such strong attachment would only hurt him as Claude had done the first time around._

_“Can I at least visit him?” the kid chose sadness instead, hiccupping as tears slid down his face, brain plagued with the possibility that Ciel could actually die despite being under the demon’s care._

_“I would not advise this, as he currently is not suitable for human eyes.”_

Sebastian hummed as he crafted another clay sarcophagus, the previous one having cracked for whatever reason. The very dead corpse of Ciel Phantomhive would rise again. Just one month.

The cats wouldn’t be here to keep him company. The mother was long gone; she had more common sense to move on than he did.

He hummed, staring at the earl’s dull, empty stare, head tilted off to the side. Sebastian had stripped the boy of his ruined clothes, exposing the ghastly and fatal wounds. He looked much like a doll, waiting for his limbs to be moved by external forces in a parody of liveliness.

His eyes traced every crack in that body with rapt fascination. He could imagine a visual representation of the soul spilling out of those seams, a soul so powerful that the body could no longer contain it. Hot licks of royal blue energy reaching out toward his body, begging to be feasted upon…

Sebastian licked his lips, something akin to hunger rumbling inside him. Walking over to the dead body, he palmed Ciel’s face lightly, playing with his hair this way and that, thumb stroking the cheek which was covered in dried blood. He leaned it to lick the blood off, when suddenly those eyes seemed to blink and a scowl appeared on his face as he said, “What do you think you’re doing, demon?”

Sebastian jerked back in shock. No, it wasn’t the corpse that had said it… there was an apparition in front of him—the earl of Phantomhive himself juxtaposed right in front of the corpse to the point where they were clipping.

“Young master?” he asked, staring at this ghost. Ciel was very much alive inside of him, so how…?

“That is a filthy way to ‘clean’ me!” the transparent being scolded, hands on his hips. The earl seemed to be clothed, in his general wear from the Phantomhive manor.

Sebastian observed this spectre carefully. Everything looked normal about the earl except for his eyes; one blue and one purple, marked with the seal of their contract. Which was impossible, because their contract was over…

He didn’t feel the pull of the contract toward the earl; it still throbbed in regards to Alois Trancy. Had the child made the conscious decision to display the seal as he’d worn it when he was alive the first time? Or was he so used to it that it came naturally when building his projected image?

He wiggled a hand through the ghost to confirm to himself this wasn’t solid.

“Stop that!” Ciel exclaimed, moving away too late and noticed that Sebastian’s hand slipped through his stomach. It gave him pause, and he walked over to the demon. He put his hand on Sebastian’s chest, but it sank right through the body.

“I know I’m not dead… I’m still inside of your body,” to prove this, Sebastian felt the warmth of Ciel’s soul increase.

“A person would have to be exceptionally powerful to project an apparition like this,” Sebastian rubbed his chin in thought. His earl always had been an amazingly bright siren of a soul. The tenacity of his charge had been greater than most humans he’d witnessed in his lifetime. He did not know exactly how strong one must be to be able to astral project, but generally it involved someone who’d consumed the powers of magical creatures, like witches and sorcerers did.

He’d never heard of a soul being able to astral project; then again, Ciel’s circumstances were highly unusual as they were currently, as no demon would allow their dinner to freely roam after consumption.

.o

Without Ciel, Alois was increasingly focused on Sebastian. The kid had no friends of his own and had to rely on those in servitude to him for entertainment. Sebastian was not accustomed to being a ‘friend’ in any sense, specifically to children, who had much different tastes and ideas of what was ‘fun’ than an adult.

Sebastian tried his best, though. What kind of butler would he be if he didn’t keep up with the kid? However, he did have limits, and tried to discourage the kid’s more toxic behaviours when possible, refusing to react for the black-haired boy’s own good.

Ciel was able to phase in and out of his own volition, and chose to hide at any point the Trancy boy was around. Sebastian supposed it was for the best; it would raise too many questions if the boy saw a ghost floating about him.

The boy did not wish to focus on history lessons or instrument practice or fencing. He was a child of mental chaos, unable to do things that a basic adult needed to learn. He could, however, cook and plan, unexpected as they were. Sebastian made it a habit to get the boy into the kitchen with him daily, introducing him to foreign foods and flavours that the boy had never seen outside of England. It lifted his spirits to see the boy’s face light up in something other than maliciousness or with a false positivity belying evil intent.

Today, he was going to prepare chocolate paan with the kid, a sweet Indian confection he was sure the kid would enjoy. Alois had a more diverse palette than Ciel, not partaking in sweets nearly as much, but occasionally he would request it.

Alois stared at the bright red roses set on the table in confusion. “We’re eating flowers?”

“Ah, you’d be surprised,” Sebastian murmured. He’d left the rose petals to sit in the sun for days, and had prepared the other leafy ingredients as well.

Alois chuckled as his fingers played with the large green leaves. “This reminds me of when I was poor and had no access to food supply… I would have to eat leaves and wild berries because I couldn’t find food… Everyone in our village had died and the food supplies burned up so I couldn’t even eat that.”

Sebastian mixed his supplies silently. He held out the giant leaf that now carried a plethora of food, and instructed the kid on how to prepare it for being submerged into chocolate. The kid followed suit with his own, folding it and placing the stick in the middle to keep the petals of the leaf together. Sebastian dipped it into chocolate, and Alois’s followed suit. It was left to bake, and Trancy smiled genuinely up at Sebastian.

“I can’t wait to try it out! I’m sure it will taste great!” It was a far cry from the snide and rude comments he’d made the first time Sebastian had prepared a meal. Assumptions could be made that Trancy once treated his previous butler, Claude, like that.

Sebastian was a demon who solved problems. Most could be solved by physical force, but others, like behavioural problems, had to be handled more delicately, less he accidentally portray the same mannerisms of Claude without knowing who this demon was or how he acted. He had carefully watched how Trancy reacted to certain things, and adjusted his own behaviour accordingly. Anything that triggered the foul mouth or destructive habits, he made sure to never show again. Doing so had created a more well-rounded individual who didn’t seem to want to cause chaos as much.

Despite all the problems that the kid had, Sebastian suspected that he just needed to be given more to do that made him feel important. Cooking food for the servants was an important task. 

He surmised that he should bring the child to a soup kitchen at some point.

.o

Now that Sebastian didn’t have to worry about toting his master’s body around, he moved with quickness toward Poland again. Slower and slower, and his hunger pains were hitting an all-time high. A demon was able to eat the soul of anyone they pleased, contract or not, but the contract was their aesthetic, their formality.

Unfortunately, because he was currently in a contract, creating a new one wasn’t in his best interests.

He was famished, though…

He’d never been this hungry in between contracts, not even that several year span during his time with Ciel as his master. Concerns bloomed again and he stopped in Germany.

Germany had long since put restrictions on child labour, often criticized for such a Prussian tradition. Conditions in factories were still rather harsh, and Sebastian would dare not have set foot inside one whilst carrying his master lest he wish for his charge to die of an asthma attack.

He stalked about the cobblestone streets, a shadow that bounced from dark corner to dark corner, slinking silently into an old structure that housed weak and strong bodies alike.

Most of the children there were healthy, to Sebastian’s detriment. However, three were nearly keeled over, having been worked far past the time allowed by the law. They were working beyond their bedtime, and Sebastian suspected they were victims of child trafficking as well.

Child trafficking was divided in half between the sex trade and the work trade. Those who came from foreign countries but didn’t have such appeal in their appearance found themselves working for only a roof over their head and meager portions of food a day.

He would definitely be a savior for these children to claim their lives now. They weren’t begging for saving, the kind of saving that a demon would be happy to take their hand for. They weren’t begging for life; they hadn’t lived long enough to find a reason to keep living. Their existence only knew labour.

The demon closed down upon them, one by one, offering a sweet embrace as their last memory, warmth and no fear in sight as he consumed their souls.

Because they hadn’t been scheduled for death, thankfully, no grim reapers were about. They would be quite displeased to find their victims soulless on the day of their reckoning, though.

He felt re-energized, and with a leap, he felt the energy return thricefold. It was a quicker trip to Poland.

.o

Ah, Poland. One of two areas that his Black Death failed to flourish at during the 1300s. Sebastian enjoyed the conglomeration of different time periods found within the buildings’ architecture, from Gothic to neoclassical.

As he recalled, the boy and his butler had been spotted in Warsaw, great _Paris of the North_. Ancient buildings towered over him as he made his way residence to residence of large manors, castle-like in appearance. Of those that did respond, he did not sense anything out of place or of supernatural ethos.

On one hand, it may have been foolish on the demon’s part to go about asking around for Claude Faustus given his current predicament. If the sought-after demon caught wind that someone was looking for him—his prior identity—he would be on high alert for anything suspicious.

Additionally, Sebastian wasn’t sure he’d be able to terminate the demon with how weak he was becoming.

On the other hand, he needed to complete this contract. At the very least, being able to sense another demon’s presence, Claude Faustus or not, would be a better lead to start with than having none.

A residence, much smaller than the others that he had scouted, caught his eye. Despite the others having rather nice landscapes, this one had impeccable gardenry, windows not blemished and flowers abloom in their prime despite it not being the most favourable of conditions this time of year.

Sebastian approached cautiously, senses alight for anything that could give him a sign.

He reached the door, glancing all about. His eyes caught a spiderweb dangling from a corner at the entrance. He found it peculiar, giving how immaculate everything else was, that a web would be spared from cleaning.

Before he could knock, the door opened, and a foreboding sensation struck Sebastian hard. A demon most definitely resided here.

A man was behind the door, having black combed-back hair, yellow eyes, a pair of glasses upon his nose, and a well-kept black tailcoat. Sebastian could teek that this demon was powerful; much more powerful than he was at the moment. If Sebastian had been at full strength, he was sure that he could surpass this beast.

“Hello, I was doing research on the culture and relationships of butlers and their manors. I heard that at one point, a butler by the name of ‘Claude Faustus’ may have served here. I was wondering if that was true and if I could ask you or someone else knowledgeable about this estate a few more questions?”

Whereas most people’s faces contorted into confusion, this one’s eyes narrowed and lips tightened into a frown.

“No,” he said straightforwardly.

Sebastian kept his demon aura under lock and key with the hopes that this demon wouldn’t sense what he was.

Bowing low, Sebastian gave the demon thanks before retreating.

He’d found his target.

.o

Sebastian pressed his head into the soft pillows of Alois Trancy’s bed. He had arrived back at the manor at around three in the morning, expecting everyone to have returned to their quarters, but the boy had been pacing restlessly.

_“I had a nightmare again,” the kid explained, gripping at Sebastian’s pants and clinging. “It was of that foul demon who betrayed me and stuck me in a ring.”_

Sebastian had just met that demon face-to-face, but didn’t mention this to Alois. Instead, he watched as Alois climbed into bed, long shirt catching on his knees as he siddled up to the demon atop the sheets.

“You aren’t going to betray me like that clod did, are you?” he looked up at Sebastian with those green eyes, searching for nothing but the truth.

“I have no reason to betray you. The contract will have me protect you until the very end. I am working hard for you, day and night, to accomplish what you’ve asked of me. I have made progress tonight, and I hope to see you accomplish your revenge soon.” The demon curled his lips into a smile as the boy buried his head into his vest, hugging tightly to his torso. The arm trapped underneath the boy wrapped around him and kept him close. Alois sighed and relaxed further, finding a place of peace in his troubled world.

Ciel watched on with idle jealousy, but didn’t voice his complaints. If Sebastian was able to tame this feral dog, then why should he step in the middle of that? It wasn’t as if the demon cared more about the black-haired tart than about him.

Sebastian slipped his hand over Alois’s ringed finger, fiddling with the ring while he listened to the kid’s slowing breaths, watching the kid’s face twitch as he returned to dreamland.

_“Claude would never hold me like this. When I needed comfort, he would lie there, stiff as a doornail,” the child wept quietly. “But you—you,” he hiccupped, unable to finish his sentence, choking up._

_“No need to reflect on what was, young lord,” Sebastian whispered, petting the boy’s hair tenderly as he shook with tears of relief._

That had been the first time Alois called him to bed since Ciel had taken his one month departure. It was a very different experience to sleep with him alone compared to when he’d bedded with Ciel at his side. The kid saw it as extra playtime, doing things to irritate the young earl, as though trying to compete for Sebastian’s attention. Ciel didn’t want to feed into the kid’s delusions, and turned his back to him with his arms folded.

Now, he was at ease, and almost… normal.

.o

Over the course of that month, Alois began requesting to sleep with Sebastian every night, when he wasn’t out investigating, of course. Sebastian felt this put a dent into the amount of time he could have spent canvassing Faustus’s residence, but at the same time, it meant that the following day wouldn’t be filled with a sleep-deprived child who became more belligerent and disrespectful and disruptive when he didn’t get that needed rest.

His nightmares ceased to exist when beside Sebastian.

He prepared the boy for bed, undressing him without an issue. Alois accepted bedtime now. No time for making life miserable.

Sebastian could hear cats scratching at the door as Alois settled in beside him as usual. Sebastian sighed, getting up to let them in. Once a tiny mewling spotted kitten, now a giant wildcat that could kill other animals with ease, one of the cats roamed in and planted itself on the bed. Alois giggled, curling up with the cat instead of Sebastian when the demon made his way back to the bed.

When the boy first interacted with the cats, Sebastian was horrified to see how roughly and uncaringly the boy treated the cats. Pulling at their ears and tails, dropping them like a sack of potatoes, delighting in scaring them. Sebastian had a _very_ firm talk with Alois at that point, pouring on the strong disappointment and disapproval in his words. Sebastian doubted Alois had ever had a father figure in his life, one that would discipline him properly. After that day, he stopped being so cruel to the cats and began looking at Sebastian from a new perspective.

The cat purred, having come to accept and trust the black-haired boy even after the torment, kneading at his clothes lightly and generating warmth that Alois accepted. It truly warmed the demon’s heart to see the two getting along.

Ciel buzzed restlessly inside him. “My body’s almost ready, isn’t it?”

Sebastian kept his voice to a low whisper as to not awaken the boy beside him. “Indeed.”

“I’m bored, Sebastian.”

“The young lord wants me here.”

“Would he know any different if you left while he slept?”

Sebastian tutted. “I recall one night, you asked me to stay by your side through the night. How would you feel if I’d left at any point during the night?”

Ciel made to retort but then shut his mouth. He simmered before deciding it was okay to appear in front of Sebastian when the boy was in deep sleep.

The demon didn’t show the surprise on his face when the young earl’s near-solid body materialized. The boy never deigned to crop up around the Trancy boy, yet here he was, so bold as to arise _naked_. He rose an eyebrow instead in a silent query.

“Sebastian,” the apparition gasped as though embarrassed, but a knowing grin was plastered on his angelic face.

Was the boy so craving attention that he would provide a _show_ for the demon? Trying to tempt the demon into using the services of one lonely hand to bring himself to completion at the sight of his unforgiving once-master who offered himself up like a cat in heat?

The boy slunk onto all fours, turning away from the butler to present his pert bum, nude and wiggling. Red eyes tracked each movement with rapt fascination, widening when small fingers gripped at one cheek to spread and give a view of that taut, pink hole. His mind raced at the fact that this young master was nowhere near as conservative as the young master he knew one hundred years ago. He wondered what influence brought about this racy change in the master. He knew Alois had displayed rather lewd and adult behaviours when he’d first been here, but…

His hands twitched, needing to grab onto something as his pants tightened.

“ _Sebastian_ ,” he begged in a needy voice, tossing his head back to look at the demon.. He widened his large eyes so that more light bounced into them. In some ways, Ciel was more aware of his effects on Sebastian now than ever. Sebastian had been forced to use children’s bodies of whom he’d claimed the souls of, in order to get off to Ciel for years, and when not doing that, succumbing under Ciel’s voice or ministrations as a soul manipulating his body from within.

Even though Sebastian now had the option to play with Ciel via the doll of a body, it was currently being rebuilt, and he was practicing abstinence until he felt the boy was ready for his body to be properly sodomized.

Sebastian’s eyes burned into the ghostly boy.

The seal within the boy's right eye glowed right back.

It didn’t help that Ciel was spacially aware enough to align his body so that to Sebastian’s vantage point on the bed, it appeared as though his tented groin was ready to plunge in between the boy’s thighs and claim his body.

Ciel could touch himself, but he couldn’t yet touch Sebastian. Sebastian wondered if apparitions could be given enough power to have solid points of their apparition, such as hands. Solid enough to grab his throbbing rod with those tiny hands and give a hearty squeeze, one strong enough to replicate the tight ring of muscles that he longed to bury himself in?

The boy knew the demon couldn’t act upon his arousal, laughing airily at the demon who sunk into the bed, bereft with uncomfortable, tight pants.

He would make sure to punish the young earl once he returned to his body. Punish greatly, yes… Perhaps a modified spanking would get that earl to think twice about teasing him like this again.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian learns of damning info and is nearly damned himself.

The manor was owned by no one. It had been abandoned for over a century now, and the only reason there was still upkeep to it was because of Sebastian.

Alois Trancy admitted he was not sure of the identity of the boy’s body that he took refuge in, nor was he sure of how the ring had gotten onto the boy’s hand. The last thing he remembered of his previous life was the vision of Claude Faustus, then endless nightmares of his village, his brother, and the demon, until he awoke in this body, in the manor, with Sebastian at his side. He’d been filled with loathing for the bastard, so strongly that it had managed to summon Sebastian.

There were other servants in the manor, but they seemed to be without a soul themselves, moving in zombielike fashion to complete tasks that they were preassigned to, never deviating, never listening to any new orders that Sebastian may ask of them. It freed up the butler’s time, but also had him curious as to what happened here. It seemed as though someone else knew of clay sarcophagi revival.

He had called Sebastian that name as Claude, in his past life, had mentioned a butler by the name of ‘Sebastian Michaelis’. The name stuck with him for some reason, but he had no idea of its significance.

Sebastian was on one knee and thanked Alois sincerely for all the info he provided, even if it was of no real use to him. The genuineness of the thanks made the boy’s cheeks rosy, as he hadn’t been given such pure gratitude before.

Sebastian was tuned in harmoniously with the boy and his desires. He had never been a father, no, but he’d seen examples enough to play the role of one. He ruffled the young boy’s black hair, a pleased look gracing his features as he stood up.

“Shall we prepare breakfast for this fine day?”

Alois could not have agreed with more enthusiasm.

.o

_Click clickity clickity clack clack clickity clack._

His feet had never moved in such a manner before. It required a focus on not only the music—if there was an instrument or singer involved—but also an ability to express one’s emotion through their movement. Alois seemed to have a natural ability for it.

Sebastian played a guitar—found in the bowels of the manor—for his _falseta_ role in their arrangement, whilst the boy provided clapping, as they both performed artfully the dance of flamenco.

Alois had donned a black Pañosa for this occasion, twirling it elegantly when warranted, bouncing and skipping with glee about his butler. The kid couldn’t stop laughing from sheer happiness, slapping his hands on his thighs with a quick and flowing rhythm. Their black, heeled shoes clattered about the hard wood floor in synch, speaking to each other on common ground.

All that energy that once expressed itself in rudeness, irritation and sadism converted itself into a vibrant, mellifluous flow, moving from the feet into the legs into the hips into the arms, rising above to the head which would follow the rest of the body in harmony. The head didn’t control anything here; the emotions from within controlled the body.

“Did you feel it?” Alois breathed, staring expectantly up at his dance partner. “Feel the calling of the darkness within?”

“I fear I have much to learn, young master,” Sebastian admitted, bowing his head. “However, it is an intriguing art form. And it appears you enjoy it greatly, so I too shall invest more time into it. It pleases me to see the young master happy.”

Alois blushed in full, looking down in a rare moment of shyness or modesty. It was a new experience in his life to have someone express an investment in his interests.

“Would you be interested in learning how to sew? It can be a bit frustrating at first, but we can make the sort of clothes that would be suitable for this style of art.”

“Can’t we just buy it?” the boy huffed.

“Yes, but I believe it would be much more fun to create our own designs and wear our own clothes that we make…together.”

With Alois’s fascination with flamenco, Sebastian found a starting point in which to start the boy off in education. The boy vehemently refused to sit through education lessons, but with a starting point of flamenco, he could slowly encourage the boy to sit through Andalusian and Spain lessons, the origins of flamenco. With time, he would become a knowledgeable boy.

.o

By the time Ciel’s body was ready for collection, Sebastian hadn’t made any headway on the situation with his energy loss. He tried fruitlessly collecting information from human books and books authored by demons under human names, but the only place he would get the info he sought was the underworld. His lord Trancy was safe for the moment, but humans marked with a demon’s contract would be seen by lesser demons as a valuable, tasty target, and if he were to go to the underworld without his master in tow, the boy would be susceptible to others’ attacks.

He had left Ciel alone on multiple occasions, but at that time he had also had his full strength and a stronger contract due to the placement of the seal on the boy’s right eye—giving a more powerful contract.

With Alois, he was at less than half his usual strength and the contract wasn’t nearly as potent, what with his mark on the boy’s tongue. He was no longer so confident in his ability to reach his master in time if a threat ever presented itself to the black-haired boy.

Ciel’s apparition appeared next to Sebastian as the demon removed the barrier that trapped heat in the den, revealing the hot sarcophagi. He watched in silence as the demon went through the motions, tossing his magic leaves and seeing the top of the sarcophagi slide over before falling on the side. The soulless body of Ciel Phantomhive sat up slowly.

The demon toted the empty body out of the sweltering hot room and over to the entrance, placing it onto the thick blanket that had remained since the first resurrection, to cool off.

“Do you suppose that it’s because you were without me inside you for so long that is causing your lack of energy?” Ciel didn’t know much about how power distribution worked in demons. All he knew is that the more demons ate, the stronger they became.

 _Unlikely_ , Sebastian thinks. He props against an opposite wall and waits. The ghost of Ciel sits next to him, with nothing better to do but feed on the anticipation.

Forty-five minutes pass, and the body was cool enough to transfer Ciel without worry. The demon walks over and bends over the body. His lips brush against small, pale ones when suddenly he senses the presence of another. He doesn’t stop his motions, but he also doesn’t release Ciel from within, either.

If he’d been at full strength, he wouldn’t have been snuck up on like this! It was embarrassing how diminutive his powers had become.

Grell.

The demon looks over his shoulder.

“Oh don’t let me stop you now! Boy on boy action does give me the vapours,” The red head gave a sharp smile, fanning himself. “Be gentle on my womb!”

“What brings you to my humble abode?” the demon asked with a raised eyebrow.

“You, Sebby, have been a _very_ naughty boy. Eating the souls of all those children! Whatever happened to the honour of contracts for greater demons such as yourself?”

Ah, the children from Germany. How did the reaper find out about that? He supposed one could make an educated guess, seeing as he was the last demon Grell had encountered there.

“I do plan on releasing them to the grim reapers in time,” Sebastian explained truthfully. “They were knocking on death’s door when I’d claimed them, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes, but, you know that messes with our to-do list—“ the grim reaper paused, leaned to the side as he noticed Ciel. “What are you still doing with that parasite?”

The boy looked offended. “Who are you calling a parasite?”

“Your ‘perfect soul’ is feeding off YOU,” he huffed. “Perhaps it’s because of how slack a chain you’ve allowed your watchdog to walk with; I don’t know much about demons and their annoying soul-eating habits, but I _do_ know that some souls can be quite needy and even feed off the energy of other souls or beings if left unchecked. You think Merlin was a great wizard of many years longer than the average human on his own? No, he figured out how to collect souls as a human, among other things—no doubt with the aid of magical creatures—to keep him alive. If you didn’t strip the energy of the soul you’ve eaten, I’m sure it’s bound to eat _you_ just to stay alive!”

Sebastian takes in this info with a dawning realization. This was a punishment for developing attachments to his prey. His lips curled downward in a frown.

Ciel was in horror. “But this body prevents it from happening, right?” he pointed at the still form of the corpse.

“Hm? Perhaps the first time it may have helped, but the more you resurrect the same body over and over like this, the more invisible cracks it has, and the more your soul leaks out to harvest energy from others. It can’t survive off the energy used to remake it from the earth forever.”

The boy turned to stare at Sebastian with wide eyes. “If I’d known it’d do this to you…”

Sebastian wanted to pat the boy’s head in reassurance. “Don’t fret, young master.”

“I _highly_ encourage you to fret,” the reaper suggested, drawing back the starting pull handle, his death scythe roaring to life.

He was upon them before Sebastian had time to react, for a demon.

Ciel wanted to scream in frustration, stress, something; he could do nothing for this situation.

The cave would take years to fade away the blood that covered the walls. Angry hisses and gasps ripped by the chainsaw as they cavorted about the tight space. Swipe after swipe, splatter after splatter, the demon was whittled away before Ciel’s eyes.

Sebastian couldn’t fight back the way he used to. If this continued, he truly would not make it out of here. He was forced to revert to his monstrous form. At least in that form, he had a chance, not bound by sole human form.

The black feathers erupted, horns and claws sprouting. It gave the reaper momentary shock as he’d never seen the demon reveal his true form. The pause was all Sebastian needed to get the upper hand of the situation. Movements still sluggish but fast enough to catch that red mane, wielding him like a whip and flicking his body into the ceiling and then the ground. He pounced upon the body which lie face down in the bloody earth.

The chainsaw clattered and squealed against the hard rock. Sebastian extended leg and kicked it out of the reaper’s hand. The reaper wiggled about. Sebastian pressed a hand against the reaper’s head and pushed it to the side, revealing a patch of exposed skin of his neck.

Fully intending on draining the reaper dry, Sebastian extended his fangs and planted them firmly into his jugular. It would give him enough strength to flee far from this area.

Grell squealed; whether from pain or arousal, the demon didn’t know, nor did he care. He needed to feed.

His own blood saturated the reaper’s red clothes, he worked quickly to suck him dry. Shinigami blood had an intoxicating quality to it that human’s did not; Sebastian would be fighting off quite the hangover tonight if he would be able to get home before the inebriation set in.

The reaper’s protests began to slur and die down, the worming slowing and eventually stopping altogether. Perhaps this would kill the reaper. One less problem to deal with.

Shears stabbed into an already deep wound. William had arrived.

Deciding it better to retreat than to take on the serious, tight-cut grim reaper, Sebastian withdrew from Grell. He attempted to snatch the shears, but they retracted out of his reach. With all the energy he could muster, Sebastian launched himself off of the cliff. Sharp metal followed after him but he was out of range before they could connect.

Forced to abandon his young master's body.

.o

Alois nearly fainted when he saw the bloody wreck of his butler enter the manor, limping and leaving a trail of blood as he attempted to make his way to his quarters.

“Sebastian! What happened?”

“I was attempting to…” he wheezed. A lung had definitely been broken, and because his body wasn’t repairing as fast or as adequately as it should have been, he was struggling with a hemothorax at the moment. Blood was coughed up as he sputtered to speak. “Retrieve Ciel, and was attacked…”

“Attacked?!” The boy saw Sebastian nearly stumble and ran over to his side, arms held up and ready to catch the demon.

“Yes, it is nothing to worry… about… I will heal,” he managed, batting away the boy’s attempts to carry his burden.

“You’re not okay!” Alois protested, even as Sebastian had made it to his quarters. He opened the door, allowing Alois to follow through, and set himself on his bed, lying down and groaning. A lot of things were broken and he wasn’t sure how long it would take to heal, or if it even would heal, given how much he’d lost from Ciel being near him.

“I’m afraid I may be out of commission for a while, as your butler,” the demon turned his face away from Alois, “I am sorry for not being in the best position at the moment.”

Alois shook his head vigorously. “No! I’m sure you did the best you could. And, I’ll make sure to take care of you until you feel better.”

“A young master should never have to say that to his butler. I am most ashamed.”

The boy opened his mouth, heart leaping at the chance to offer his own soul prematurely to help save his butler, but paused as he remembered how Claude had treated him when he showed affection or devotion toward the demon. He didn’t want Sebastian to die, but he did not want for Sebastian to see him as weak for caring about the only person really left in his world.

Sebastian could see that the boy was having an internal war with himself. He first wiped his hand clean of any dirt or blood, and then reached out to Alois, a hand palming his jaw gently. “If you think it would be best, and you _really_ want to, then do what you must. I will not think less of you for wanting to take care of someone, even If it is your butler. That is a sign of a good man. I would be honoured to serve under such a man.”

He made sure his speech did not slur as the reaper's blood took effect. A warm sensation pouring over his body, a fuzzy, numbing feeling helping to ease the pain.

Alois’s heart flipped in his chest. Since he became conscious of how his actions affected others through the cat incident, he had been putting a serious effort into evaluating his behaviour. Sebastian let it be known immediately when he disapproved, speaking up when others would just look away and remain silent because he was but a boy. Sebastian would also praise him and encourage him when he performed in a way that Sebastian thought was good. He would give the boy attention and embraces and _contact_ that he so desperately craved.

He trusted Sebastian not to hurt him. A long time ago, he would have said that about Claude, but that was because he was blind, blinded by a desperate need for company. Said company did not care about his wellbeing, even though the company claimed they desired him. They didn’t desire him as a person, they desired him as food.

He was food to Sebastian, yes, but the butler seemed to care just as strongly about how the boy developed as a _person_. He wasn’t grooming food just for it to taste better. He was making his food healthier.

“I’ll do my best,” Alois smiled even though he didn’t feel like smiling at the sight of his demon butler, on the border of death.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian gets answers.

The feral cats surrounded his body like a group of bodyguards, having sensed his distress and weakness. Cats, to humans, were known to help lead souls to the afterlife. This wasn’t the case for demons, but it still gave him comfort to think about such fiction.

He was healing at a depressingly slow rate. In the beginning, his bedding required changing every hour, saturated with blood. Ciel suggested that the wounds be wrapped in bandage, but Sebastian declined, as it would have no effect on the healing rate. The body was meant to heal without obstruction. He would not die from blood loss as, thankfully, the body was still producing a generous amount despite the lack of energy.

Alois didn’t want to touch the sheets at first, not wanting Sebastian to move about, but it was something that needed to be done. He wished sometimes that his other servants weren’t mindless drones, so that they’d listen to him and help him with this task, or even wishing that Ciel was here to help… what would Ciel say if he saw his partner in such a state?

This was the perfect opportunity for Alois to truly learn how to take care of someone else other than himself. He began spending even more time in the kitchen, preparing food to the best of his ability. At first, plenty of blue rare meat was provided to Sebastian, since the demon detested cooked food. Well, all food in general, but raw meat was the most palatable thing that the demon could stomach as far as human food went.

But as meat grew scarce, he was stuck in a dilemma. He could go to the market to buy more, but that would leave Sebastian more vulnerable. He didn’t want to go through what happened with Luka, because he wasn’t there by the lost brother’s side. There wasn’t much the child could do to stop any other big bad demons that might come in to finish off Sebastian in his state of weakness, but he could also offer himself up to them as a sacrifice.

Sebastian reassured the boy that he didn’t _need_ meat, but Alois felt so strongly on this issue that he wished to keep the demon’s energy growing. Sebastian relented.

Alois ate in Sebastian’s room, sitting on the edge of his bed and feasting upon his own cooked dinners. He always showed Sebastian what he’d made, to prove that he was still cooking. Sebastian was ever impressed when the boy started using recipes that he hadn’t taught the boy, and he actively encouraged the boy to continue down that creative path.

When still in the room, Alois would perform flamenco in front of him. The boy was more knowledgeable on this than the demon was, and the boy was adamant on teaching the demon that the dance required emotion and feeling rather than just clinical skill. He would go through the motions, trying to explain why his body moved this way or that, but it was hard to find words to describe this art form.

As Sebastian healed further, he was able to clap his hands to Alois’s compás, a small act that boosted Alois’s performance in a very noticeable way. The boy had danced with a sullen face, movements more pronounced and drawn, conveying his gloom. But when Sebastian participated, it set his heart aflutter and he would smile despite the heartache.

Other times, Alois would sit there and read Sebastian history books of Spain, to show him that he was studying. Sebastian specifically requested books pertaining to the Black Plague in Spain, and it gave him a dark pleasure to hear about how his blight affected humanity during that era.

Other times, Alois would just lay there in bed, petting the cats and staring at the demon with such intensity, as if his gaze alone could will him to heal faster. It spoke volumes to Sebastian that the child was so doting, so attentive, compared to when they had first met.

When Alois wasn’t in the room, seldom as that was, Ciel took the time to manifest and trace the wounds on Sebastian’s body. There was no actual physical contact, but the demon understood. There was nothing he could do, though.

“Is this why you really had the barrier around your soul?” Ciel asked. “Because souls can weaken you if left like I was?”

“Nothing of the sort. As I’ve said in the past, demons do not have souls. My word remains true that I keep barriers up to prevent other demons and magical beings alike from reading me.” The demon sighed, able to breathe and speak easily now that the blood in his lungs had drained out.

“So it isn’t because you don’t want other souls to rise up and revolt against you in your own body?”

“I wasn’t aware that this was a thing that could happen, but there are always exceptions to the rules, and if anything, a mortal like yourself was bound to break them at some point or another… even in death, you attract trouble,” the demon teased. Ciel stuck his tongue out in response.

“Where did you learn that? If you were able to be touched, I would grab that tongue and leave another seal as a reminder of who you’re insulting.”

Ciel scowled at the thought of his seal being in the same place as Alois’s. He didn’t find himself hating the idea _because_ he hated Alois, though… He didn’t find himself despising Alois anymore. He just thought it was a tasteless place to put a seal, no pun intended.

Unfortunately, Ciel was caught one day.

He’d splayed his ghostly body over the demon’s, dozing off in his presence, when Alois came in.

The black-haired boy let out a yawp, surprised to see the boy there, ethereal as he was.

“C-ciel?” he asked, running up to the bed even as the startled earl floated away and off the bed.

“A-ahh.. I…” Ciel wasn’t sure what to say.

Alois looked at Sebastian with amazement in his eyes. “Is he dead?!”

Sebastian tilted his head, wondering how he should answer this.

“Yes, but no. Ciel’s soul resides within me, as he was a contract of mine in the past. However, I did craft him a new body, and when he’s not in that body, he appears like this sometimes.” He gestured to the apparition.

Alois shook his head, trying to connect the logic of the events. Sebastian helped him.

“When I said I was going to retrieve Ciel, I’d meant his body. The body had been cut to bits by a reaper, so I had to remake his body. It takes roughly a month.”

“Reaper? What is a reaper?”

“A demon’s enemy. A reaper did this to me,” waving at his body. “They witness the death of a human and then cast judgment upon the soul, determining whether they move on or not. Naturally, they don’t like that demons eat souls.”

The boy jumped onto the bed and hugged at Sebastian’s body. If he’d done this days ago, the demon might have hissed in pain, but the wounds were mostly closed now. “Don’t ever mess around with those reapers! I don’t want to lose you like that!”

Sebastian pet at Alois’s hair. “Demons are hardy creatures. It will take more than a shinigami to kill me.”

The boy was silent for a few minutes, looking pouty, before he looked at Ciel and smiled.

“It’s okay. We can take care of Sebastian together, even if you can’t touch anything. And when you get your body back, we can dance flamenco together!”

Ciel’s gaze softened.

Yeah, they could dance flamenco together.

.o

Sebastian had an investigation to do in the underworld.

Souls tied to objects, such as rings, could successfully pass from the mortal world into hell. A grim reaper could not collect the ring and say that it was ready for judgment; the soul would have to be extracted from the object before that could proceed. Likewise, a soul that passed into hell via soul-bound object would not be damned to hell for all eternity unless extracted from the object while in hell.

Sebastian could safely wear the Trancy boy’s soul ring and seek out the information needed if only he could convince the boy to let him see through with this plan.

He originally thought of just taking the ring, but that would break the trust of his master too easily and would revert the boy back into a snarling, disobedient pup. He would have to do things the old fashioned way.

“Young Master,” he reached out to hold Alois’s hand, “I need to go to the underworld to figure out how to solve this problem.”

The boy’s eyes lit up as he bounced on the bed. “Can I come? It gets boring sitting in this musty house all day.”

“In a sense, yes, but not in your body.” The confusion was plain the boy’s face.

“I would have to wear your ring in order for me to take you safely.”

Alois immediately shook his head. “Can’t I just stay here then while you do your business?”

“I do not wish for anyone to be able to bring you harm. In my current state, weakened, I may not make it back to you in time if something were to happen.” He held the boy’s face with both hands. “Do you understand? You are the most important thing to me in this contract. Before my safety, before your other orders, you are my priority. I do not wish to leave any room for error.”

The boy’s green eyes began to glimmer as tears trailed down his cheeks. He held onto Sebastian’s wrists, pressing his face more into his hold. Shaking his head lightly, eyes looking everywhere but at Sebastian’s face as his brain searched for answers, reasons, excuses, anything to prevent him from leaving his body like the first time…

Sebastian brushed away a tear with his thumb, now gloved as he’d fully healed and dressed himself in proper, uncleaved attire.

“I want to be able to do my best for you,” Sebastian said. Alois pulled out of the demon’s hands, throwing himself into Sebastian’s arms in a tight hug.

“You’ll put me back in my body, won’t you?” He whispered, sniffling and praying to the gods he denounced that he could trust Sebastian. Sebastian was not Claude. He would not leave him stuck in the ring forever.

He felt Sebastian’s arms encircle around him. The boy used one hand to reach up and touch the hand that cradled his head, the hand that glowed with the seal of his contract. He drew away, and looked into the demon’s red eyes.

“Yes, my lord.” A calm reply. Alois licked his lips, a sliver of that seal appearing for just a brief moment, but Sebastian saw it.

.o

Hell was a dark place. As demons could see in the dark, there was not need for lighting. Sebastian was much faster in his homelands, not bound as frivolously to gravity as on mortal lands. His destination was the Fountain of Yama, a massive infrastructure that housed not only the entirety of demon scripture and literature, but mountains of knowledge of human writings harvested from demons who traveled to the overworld, and even documents from divine figures, how little they wrote. If one looked hard enough, they could find a fabled Cinematic Record book here. Rumour has it that if you read it, you’ll hear the faint screaming of disgruntled grim reapers from above as they search futilely for their lost records.

Though the demon could navigate just fine, Ciel was shrouded in darkness. He wished he could contribute more, but being unable to see left him a sitting duck. Alois was not there to keep him company; wearing the ring did not give the boy’s soul the ability to free roam. It appeared that Sebastian would have had to consume Alois’s soul in order for him to be in Ciel’s position.

Sebastian entered the building. There were other demons floating about, and everyone minded their own business. If a human were able to see it, it could be easily compared to a human’s version of a library.

Unfortunately, Sebastian had no idea where to start. He passed row after row of information, seeing everything from the etymology of demon names to how to deliver a human female’s offspring. While he knew where the Fountain of Yama was located, he had never been inside.

At last, he had found a shelfstack relating to souls. He read and read, covering hundreds of pages with ease. Books began to stack on top of each other has he cleared the shelf of all available topics on souls.

‘ _When a living being copulates with another living being, their souls momentarily leave their bodies to fuse together, sharing their life experiences and essence. The souls will take a small piece of the other’s soul to bond them together; however, the female will receive a larger portion as she requires it for when she’s creating offspring. That offspring’s soul will be a combination of father and mother’s soul._ ’

‘ _A soul can be purified in very few ways, the simplest one being through an Angel._ ’

‘ _If a soul is left outside of a creature’s body, left alone with no nearby sources, it will feed upon itself until it extinguishes itself, unable to sustain itself. A creature becomes old and dies because the soul has exhausted it of all possible energy._ ’

There was nothing in these books that helped him with his situation. Close, but no cigar.

“Are you looking for something specific?” a queer voice spoke to his side. The demon passively looked over to who addressed him. It was a deathly thin male of his height, elderly in appearance and wearing strange green-lensed goggles that appeared much more advanced than the current time period permitted. He was dressed in black robes and small animal bones looped around his neck and arms. A walking cane appeared to assist him in movement, the stick looking like an elongated sickle, a curved blade at the bottom that must have made it unnecessarily difficult to walk with.

“It appears I did not find what I was looking for,” Sebastian replied in disappointment, snapping the book shut before starting to put the books back on the shelves in the same order they’d been originally.

“You are sure about that?” He grinned, no teeth there to flash, as he reached into one giant sleeve and pulling out a spiral bound notebook. The title, ‘ _Bloodsucking Souls_ ’ was stamped on the front.

Sebastian analyzed this demon carefully. The demon could have deduced that he’d been researching info on souls based on the book selection, but he had a book whose title taunted him with its bluntness.

“Could I ask to borrow that book for a brief moment?” Sebastian asked.

“Could you? You _could_ ask, indeed!” the old man cackled, jowls jostling and goggles glinting in the dark.

“I’m honoured that you’d like to read my book! But I must ask something of you in response,” the white-haired demon leered.

His book? Perhaps the demon had written it himself. He looked old enough to have the wisdom.

“And what would that be?” Sebastian queried when the man didn’t finish.

“A good laugh!”

That gave Sebastian pause and had him giving this man another appraising look, eyes running up and down. It was not the Undertaker, but…

“Are you related to the Undertaker?”

The man seemed to do a double take and then bent back to howl with laughter, the loud noise echoing off the walls. “Hehehe, I didn’t expect that! You are a natural! Funny man, you. No, I’m not, but we used to be best friends!”

The demon lifted an eyebrow. “A grim reaper and a demon, friends?”

The man before him continued to smile, snorting like he was trying to hold back even more guffawing. Demons were not friends with shinigami, end of story. But shinigami could not enter hell… But that long sickle, though primitive, still resembled a death scythe, and the green goggles, they must have been some technology from the future that represented a grim reaper’s spectacles… as only grim reapers could retrieve objects from the future….

“How did you get here?” Sebastian suddenly felt more aware of his current state of vulnerability than ever.

The shinigami before him winked. “I guess you could say I made a deal with the devil before I—“ he drew a finger across his neck.

That didn’t answer any of the further questions in his head, but the reaper pushed the book into his arms before he could ask further.

Without further delay, he sped through the book with hungry eyes, searching for something, anything that would give him hope.

There was much information here that was not found in the numerous other books, as well as an intimate perspective on souls from a shinigami’s standpoint.

But as he reached the last page, he slowed, and raised his eyes up to the shinigami, having nothing but more questions.

The shinigami belted out another bout of laughter. “All that work for something that you didn’t even get the answer to!”

Sebastian grit his teeth as he began to feel a rare emotion: desperation. He stiffly held the book out to the shinigami.

“Ah, fear not, my cute demon. This is something I’ve studied extensively, and you have been a man of my observation for many years now. I was curious as to why you didn’t condemn a certain soul the same fate as the others. Knowing that you would eventually die from it, I decided to do some experimentation. I believe you’ll find what you’re looking for from the sheath of the Lævateinn. She can help you with your situation.”

“Why me, and why did you plot a way to help me?”

“I am one of the few who believe that even demons can receive judgment far after they’ve fallen from heaven.”

Sebastian gave him one last look at that cryptic message, then bowing respectfully. “I appreciate your assistance.”

It appeared the gods could shine upon him even when he was so far down here.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Redemption cannot be granted, it must be earned.

With the info gleaned from the reaper’s handwritten book and the reaper’s guidance, he located the demon sheath of the Lævateinn. He knocked on the door to her domain, an intimidating barred slab of metal with intricate filigree carvings decorating its entire length. The door opened thanks to a purple haired demon, who shared the same appearance as two others that flocked the dark skinned female, tending to her, brushing her long, white hair and massaging her limbs. All around were dimly lit candles—unnecessary, but perhaps the lady preferred a bit of ambiance.

He was risking his life approaching a demon of such power (though that was to be debated if he were at full strength), but this was his mission.

“What brings you to my feet?” she demanded, not bothering to rise from her relaxed position. She crossed one long leg over the other, the latex she wore gleaming seductively in the low light.

“I have been informed that you were seeking the soul of Alois Trancy.”

Her purple eyes widened and jaw hung slack in shock. She sat up, suddenly more interested.

“Yes, I am. Why do you bring him up?” She asks right as her eyes fall upon Sebastian’s left hand which bore the Trancy ring.

“I would like to offer his soul in exchange for a service from you,” he replied, noticing that the ornate ring had caught her attention. He held out his left hand.

“Oh? And what would that be?” she asked, brushing off her demons’ hands and standing. A hand took hold of his, drawing him closer to look at the ring. It gleamed with a soul stored within.

“I am requesting that you create a shell for me.” This is what the shinigami informed him would be needed to contain the soul’s energy sucking forces. There was one large issue with this method, but it was the only way currently documented…

“A shell? Hmph! I haven’t made one of those in millennia!” She laughed cynically, but not releasing his hand. “But an excellent trade…” her voice softened. “I have desired his soul for too long.”

Sebastian tilted his head. “May I ask why?”

“I own the soul of Alois Trancy’s younger brother, Luka. Luka moved me greatly, and his happiness is now my happiness. We want nothing more than to be reunited with him.” Her fingers rubbed at that ring in longing. “Unfortunately, as the sheath of the Lævateinn, you can imagine how much of my time is consumed with demon politics down here. I have had zero free time to myself to conduct business above in this past century. All I knew was that after Claude happened, he was bound to a ring.”

She looked up at him. “How did you obtain this ring?”

“I am contracted with my young master, and he desires for me to kill a demon he called Claude Faustus. He was wearing this ring when I met him.”

“Claude…” she frowned. “He stole contracted souls from me, including an entire manor’s staff. I may be the demon sword’s sheath, but I did not appreciate my prey being stolen when we were under our own agreement together, Claude and I.

“I created servants from the bodies of the stolen souls, resurrecting them without souls, which left them in a mindless state, but at the very least, they would take care of a household under a human alias I created. I knew Alois’s original body would not be able to survive the passage of time, but his soul would. In that ring.

“As to how Alois ended up in whatever body he has now, in order to have summoned you, I’m not sure.” She tapped her chin in thought. “Could have been a random kid who got his soul eaten whilst wearing that ring, allowing Alois to awaken.” She shrugged.

“Now I may ask _you_ questions. Why do you need a shell?”

Sebastian shifted uncomfortably. “I have a soul I would like to keep alive.”

The female’s eyes gleamed with knowing. There was a reason she hadn’t made a shell in over a millennia. No demon wanted competition, and to implant a human’s soul into one would create a new demon.

But Sebastian would do anything to keep his young earl.

“Very well, I shall take him now,” she said, and moved to pull the ring. Sebastian withdrew his hand.

“I must first consult with the young lord. He is not aware of this arrangement and I will not betray him in this contract.”

She smiled and nodded, a swell of approval rising within her. She was glad that the Trancy boy had been put into better hands that cared about him.

“You will be watching for an answer?”

“Indeed.”

.o

Time moved differently in the netherworld compared to the mortal world. Things happened a lot faster; conversations that took a minute in the demon world would pass by in seconds on the land of the living. When Sebastian returned to the Trancy manor, it had been a mere twenty minutes. The Trancy boy’s corpse was still prime for revival.

He quickly slid the golden ring back onto his finger, waiting for the boy to recover. Eventually, his lungs drew in a breath, and he got himself sitting up.

“So,” he started, lifting a heavy head to stare at the butler. “Did you get the answers?”

“Yes,” Sebastian replied, lifting the boy onto his feet and carrying the boy out of the demon’s room.

“And? What of it?” They made their way into the young lord’s room. Sebastian deposited him upon the bed.

He explained the situation of his weakened state and the need to transfer Ciel. He knew it was going to be this way. He intentionally left out the part about Luka, as he knew he had to handle the blowup first.

Trancy was frustrated, upset. “You said you’d stay by my side!”

“And I will.” He reached out to touch the boy, to calm him, but his hand was slapped away.

“You’re just like Claude! Trying to get rid of me because you can’t get the job done!”

“Young lord, I would never think of doing such a thing simply because I could not perform.” The young boy beat upon Sebastian’s legs, but Sebastian didn’t respond. He watched with a controlled expression on his face even as the child regressed into familiar behaviours of hitting and screaming. It was a defensive reaction to protect himself, much easier to do than keep restrained and trying to accept things.

“She wants me to fulfill your contract.” He said gently when the kid stopped screaming at the top of his lungs and instead pacing the floor, stomping about and tossing things here and there. “She said she would keep you alive and well until I got my strength back enough to execute your dreaded Claude Faustus.”

“Who cares?! I don’t even know her! Why should I be obligated to give up my life to some wench when you’re the one who needs to be doing this!”

Sebastian startled when he suddenly felt another presence in the manor, a demonic one at that. It approached their location at terrifying speed, stopping in front of their door before knocking. Without waiting for an answer, the door opened to reveal the sheath of the Lævateinn, still dressed in her latex garb.

Sebastian was confused as to why she presented herself now, but Alois snapped to attention.

“Hannah?!” he exclaimed, surprised.

Ah. So _this_ was the Hannah that Alois had talked about occasionally. He had harped on and on about how sad and pathetic the demoness was; Sebastian had seen a much different side, and wondered how warped the child’s reality had been back then thanks to Claude’s tainting of his soul and encouragement of antisocial tendencies.

“Yes. I am the one he is talking about taking care of you.” She stepped into the room and shut the door behind her.

“W-why would I go with you! I hate you!” he nearly screamed, growing more and more confused.

Sebastian needed to redirect the boy before he went too far down this path of rash behaviour. He gripped at the child’s shoulders, pulling him into arms the boy had come to find as safe. He fought and struggled the best he could, not even bothering to order a release with his brain so panicked. He was pulled into the demon’s lap, forced to wear himself out with squirms. He was crying, near-hyperventilating.

“Do you want to know why I think this is the right move to reach your goal?” Sebastian whispered, holding up Alois’s tear-slick chin.

Alois shook his head feebly, but his eyes begged for an answer, searching for it in those ruby eyes.

“Because Luka is with me, and he wishes dearly for you to join him,” Hannah spoke up. “He has been in me since that fateful day.”

“H-how?” the boy rasped, razor sharp focused on her as soon as she mentioned his brother’s name.

“He wanted to make you happy, summoning me to destroy your entire village, and in return, he gave his life to me.” She explained calmly. “However… there was something so different about him compared to anyone else I’ve serviced. It filled me with a longing, to see the world the way this child saw. His desire to make you happy became my desire.

“Even though you brought much pain upon me during my servitude in your first life, I would stay by your side forever. Please, join Luka and I, and together we can be happy… without Claude.”

He stared at her for a long time, with a heavy, worn look that no child should ever have to wear.

His butler wasn’t betraying him.

His butler was asking him for consent. And he would be reunited from his brother.

He shook his head in disbelief, but then Sebastian squeezed him reassuringly, and he muttered, “Yes.”

He wiggled himself out of Sebastian’s arms, which had slackened with his answer.

“Yes, however…” he moved about the room, the demons’ eyes following him intently, and he pulled out a pair of shoes.

“I want Sebastian to dance flamenco with me one last time.”

The demon in question grinned.

“I want to feel _duende_ with you.” He had learned much from his study.

Sebastian stood and bowed. “Yes, my lord.”

.o

A man who’d not yet been born would say about _duende_ that it required four elements to be considered _duende_ : irrationality, earthiness, a heightened awareness of death, and a dash of the diabolical.

 _Duende_ was interlinked with the art of flamenco. Many have tried to describe it, but few are able to reach that heightened state. It takes years to learn how to combat _duende_ , making sure they aren’t consumed and lost, but finding something new in them as a result of such raw emotions being summoned by _duende_.

They danced. Danced in the clothes that they had hand-made together.

Alois allowed the tears to flow, dripping to the ground and being stepped in by his chattering feet. He was angry at Sebastian, but he understood that this was something that had to be done. He grit his teeth, putting more force into his singing feet, hoping that his increasing intensity and fervor in his performance spoke volumes to the demon about how much this meant to him, how much the demon had affected him and changed his view on things.

Sebastian’s feet moved in tandem, complimenting each tap from his master to let him know that he was indeed paying attention, that he was hearing what the boy was saying without saying, orbiting around the boy as they flourished in a language that didn’t have words, a _cante—_ a song—known for centuries.

Ciel and Hannah watched from the side. Ciel, the ghost that he was, watching Sebastian dance his heart out because of a predicament the demon himself had put himself in, by coveting the soul of the Phantomhive boy. He had never seen the demon so passionate and _invested_ in something such as this before, and he was wondering if the demon had developed an attachment to the Trancy boy as well if he was going this distance to satisfy the boy.

He was just a soul, but if he had a heart, he might have felt its strings being tugged. Alois wouldn’t be in their lives anymore after this. It would just be him and Sebastian. Though Alois had tormented them at the start, he was a different person now, or at least, trying to be. Change took time and effort, but the boy, when motivated and pushed, showed he was more than willing to try.

Alois undulated his body, dramatically bowing and arching, arms extending outward and fingers opened toward the sky, head bowed as he allowed his _cante_ to speak for him. Finally, he let out a feral cry from his throat, broken and full of passion, tossing his head back and letting himself stand still, head tilted to the heavens and arms spread wide, a picture of submission to the gods above. The demon came to a close as well, having positioned himself back to back with Alois and fingers interlacing with each other’s.

“Olé...” the boy breathed heavily, glancing behind him as he caught his breath, willing his heart not to weep further. He felt anew, a different person, knowing his fate yet not knowing the future.

.o

Hannah proceeded to live in the manor for the time it would take to both create a new shell for Ciel, and the time it would take for Sebastian to gain his strength back and defeat Claude. Anything for Alois.

The boy was now closer than ever with the purple-haired demon, finding solace in her arms where once he imagined the touches of a whore. She sang to him a traditional Welsh lullaby, Suo Gân, silencing his nightmares.

He felt as safe in her arms as he did in Sebastian’s.

Sebastian divulged to Hannah everything Alois enjoyed, and requested that she made sure she still did those things with or for him so that he would be happy. She was a diligent note taker, wanting the best for Luka’s brother.

The shell grew within her.

.o

During the wait, Sebastian decided to prevent any further energy from being stolen by Ciel by retrieving Ciel’s puppet of a body from the cave and storing his soul inside.

Ciel was stuck in a room far away from Sebastian’s quarters and Alois’s quarters, so that he could not siphon off either of their energy. It was for his own good and for the success of the contract.

The young earl was still brought food at the appropriate times, by the butler himself, as he was still obligated to care for the boy who was his property, but he kept the interactions brief.

There were _many_ bunnies surrounding Ciel. Sebastian had put them there for Ciel’s soul to slowly feed off of. It was a slow process, and once or twice a week he would find a dead bunny lying on the ground, energy depleted by his soul, but it was a safe way to prevent Ciel’s soul from cannibalizing itself and extinguishing.

Sebastian, of course, cleaned after and fed the bunnies, which was the time Ciel got to see Sebastian the most.

Ciel was allowed outside of his room, preferably carrying a bunny or two with him, but was kept a fair distance away from Alois, Hannah, Sebastian himself, and his cats. Ciel was still able to attend lessons for Alois—he just had to sit on the other side of the room, where it was harder to hear what was being said.

Ciel felt more isolated than ever. The demon had been focused on the Trancy boy for so long, he was feeling sorely neglected, especially given that this isolation phase would be three months long.

He’d had a century to practice patience.

He could wait three months.

He might be very moody when this was all over, but he could wait three months.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A soul is a soul is a soul.

One day, Hannah announced to Sebastian that the shell was ready. Her stomach was large and swollen, harboring the blank slate within. Tens of bunnies had been taken to the grave, but now they would suffer no longer. Sebastian harvested Ciel from his puppet of a body and made his way into Ciel’s designated room.

She sat upon Ciel’s bed while Sebastian and Alois hovered at the bedside. She did not plant herself in the traditional position to bear a child. Instead, she sat upon her knees, stomach rippling.

“Sebastian, I first need you to remove the demon sword from me to avoid damaging the shell,” she requested. The demon removed one of his gloves, allowing the demoness to slobber upon his hand until it was coated in slimy saliva. He stuck his hand carefully into her mouth, down, down, until he felt the handle of the Lævateinn. Her body groaned with the strain of basically unhinging her jaw to allow the weapon to pass through. Gripping it, it was slowly extracted, covered in spit.

“Thank you," she said, wiping spit from her face as she settled herself. She held her hands cupped in front of her mouth as her body wretched. The giant mass of her stomach began moving upward, expanding parts of the body that weren’t meant to. Sounds of bones creaking and cracking could be heard, until her throat swelled to a disturbing size. A bald head began to crown from her mouth, and within a minute, a nude, featureless body was ejected from her and caught in her hands. It was a creamy white skinned body with not even a face.

She placed the shell of a human body on the bed, coughing up blood in the process, having damaged vital organs from the unorthodox delivery. As she was a demon, it would heal.

“Now, Sebastian, you must place Ciel’s soul within the shell.”

Sebastian approached the faceless, hairless body, drawing the earl’s blue soul from within him. He held it for a moment, just watching as the earl’s energy wisps curled around his fingers as if holding his hand. The earl’s soul was passed into the body.

The shell began to shake as it took on the form the soul was most comfortable with. Grey-blue hair sprouted from its head, eyebrows forming and facial structure reshaping itself. Limbs grew, and genitalia formed. When the process was finished, the bubble of spit covering the boy’s nose popped, and he took in his first breath.

When he opened his eyes, though, Sebastian was disappointed to find that the boy’s eyes were as red as his. Yes, that was the sacrifice he would have to make—his Ciel becoming a demon in order for his soul to stop leeching off of others.

“Young master,” Sebastian murmured, grabbing one of the soft towels he had prepared and dabbing gently at the boy’s face to clean it of saliva.

“It does not transfer back the centuries of essence stealing that the boy has done,” Hannah says, standing from the bed. “But you have gotten what you wanted.”

Indeed he did. He lifted the earl up, patting down his body as he would during a shower. In fact, he should probably give the earl a bath right now…

“Young master, I suggest we clean you up before proceeding,” Sebastian offered, swooping the boy off the bed and doing his best to hide his indecency from the Trancy boy, who was now holding Hannah’s hand.

The demon nodded to Hannah and Alois before carrying the earl off to the wash room.

Within, a bath was prepared with running water; no longer did Sebastian have to heat the water bucket by bucket until it was the right temperature. The handles on the bathtub provided automatic heating. The blessings of human innovation.

Ciel was set into the water, red eyes watching benevolently.

Sebastian knew that demon essence could be transferred back as easily as it was taken. He kept a barrier around his essence so that demons couldn’t detect him, but also so that they didn’t know how powerful he had been. A powerful demon is often targeted by others in an attempt to increase their own strength—a demon’s essence was much more potent than a soul alone.

The demon began to scrub the boy as he did a century ago. He had sorely missed this.

“My lord, would you consider returning my essence?”

The boy blinked. He leaned forward as Sebastian reached down his back. “Why would you rather have me return this power instead of using it to help me in this world as a new demon?”

Sebastian knew it was not going to be easy to get his powers back. The earl was as astute and sharp as ever. A century did not whittle down his intellect.

“It would be honourable, between demons, to return property that you stole unintentionally.” His hands began tending to the boy’s new legs, as smooth and soft as the day he first washed them.

“What happens if I don’t return it?” The boy asked innocently, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to start a fight with someone such as the raven demon.

“I could always kill you,” Sebastian said nonchalantly.

“As if you would,” Ciel huffed, “You would have done it a long time ago, foregoing all of this trouble to get me into a stable body.”

Sebastian was silent as he scrubbed up and down the Earl’s body, not bothering to titillate his now-virgin body, opting to think. The earl had a point. Sebastian also didn’t know if killing him would cause his essence—generations of hard work—to disperse into the netherworld and never to be reclaimed.

There was something disturbing about a demon with a soul. In all his years, he’d never heard of such a thing. In his eyes, Ciel was stepping on the lines of what he considered fragile and helpless, as being a demon meant he was very much able to handle himself when it came to human affairs now. If the boy was kidnapped—as was a frequent habit—he could easily slaughter and escape thanks to his demon powers. He wouldn’t have to rely on Sebastian anymore to save him.

But he had to look at things from a larger picture. While the earl no longer needed saving, it did not mean that the earl would no longer need _Sebastian_. Ciel had had someone to do things for him all his life, and to leave the boy now that he could protect himself would be like releasing a ranch-raised mink into the wild and expecting it to thrive. Despite it having claws and fangs to protect itself, it was still a different colour, which made it easier for prey to spot, as well as predators to find, but it also had never been taught how to provide for itself. So it would surely starve, waiting for that slaughterhouse byproduct feed to be tossed in front of it.

“Allow me to think about it,” Ciel broke the silence.

“Very well,” he nodded, wrapping up the bath session.

.o

Ciel, as it turns out, was not very good at flamenco.

He was not light on his feet to begin with, may as well have been born with two left feet, for he was not someone suitable for the role of a flamenco performer.

Alois didn’t seem to mind how much Ciel bungled the dance, though. He was more than happy that Ciel even considered dancing with him. He even allowed Ciel to wear his Pañosa, though if he were asked, he would say it’d look better on him.

.o

Sebastian made a quick trip to Poland that night just to confirm that Claude Faustus was still at his residence. He kept a healthy distance from the manor, concealing his presence to the best of his abilities. Claude had apparently expanded his presence since Sebastian’s last visit months ago, as he could sense Claude far further than the front door this time.

Now all he had to do was convince his young master to give his powers back and he would be able to satisfy Alois’s contract.

.o

“Let us make a contract,” Ciel approached Sebastian while he was polishing the silverware in the kitchen while Alois chopped at onions for a new recipe he’d concocted. He pressed his chest against Sebastian’s back, looping his hands around the butler’s waist. A bit awkward, considering the height difference.

“Demons cannot make contracts with each other in the way we formed a contract as human and demon,” Sebastian explained, continuing to do his job.

“A deal, then,” Ciel reworded. Sebastian stopped what he was doing and turned around in Ciel’s hold to look down at the boy. Alois watched them nosily from the corner of his eye.

“I want to be with you. Even after all I know as a demon needs to know to survive on their own, I want to be by your side.”

The boy contained a great wealth of power, more than he realised. Sebastian could teek that Ciel had as much power as he currently did, the leech that Ciel was, which was disturbing to think about considering the boy had no experience on how to use it.

Did he want to be stuck with the boy forever? He should reword that, as he didn’t find Ciel’s company unfavorable. Did he want the boy to be with him forever?

Well, yes. He wouldn’t have put him in a near-immortal body if he hadn’t.

Fully aware of the audience they had, he dropped to one knee as he would in the past. He would carry this burden with him forever. The boy was a once in a lifetime meal—not the lifetime of a human, but the never-ending life of a demon.

He pressed his lips upon the young earl-turned-demon, stealing his first kiss in this new body. Those large red eyes widened, shimmering with uncontrolled expression. When he pulled back, he bowed his head with a smirk.

“Yes, my lord.”

.o

They had planned on coalescing in Sebastian’s room, but as the entirety of the wildcat litter was lounging on his bed, they opted for Ciel’s room instead.

Sebastian didn’t want to separate from Ciel’s body at any point. His chest burned with pining as the child squeezed and wiggled upon him. They fell upon his bed, Sebastian beneath Ciel, kissing hot with need.

The young earl had learned how to change his eye colour since the bath. Sebastian found himself staring into those innocent dark blue eyes, which was much more arousing to him than the demon red, which reminded him that this wasn’t actually a human Ciel anymore.

The boy fumbled about with trying to get Sebastian’s vest unbuttoned, so the demon aided him, much faster at dressing and undressing than he. Vest unbuttoned, blouse unbuttoned, and a wide expanse of skin became available for Ciel to discover and play with.

Small hands groped about while larger ones proceeded to disrobe the young demon, pinching and tickling along the way. He so enjoyed the way the boy’s body jumped and pressed against his touches.

When the boy was stripped, he pulled him down so that their chests could connect. Ciel tried to push himself up but Sebastian kept his hand firm on the boy’s back.

“Sebastian…” Ciel started, but saw the fond look the butler was giving him, and he acquiesced, allowing him to be held. A blush crept onto his face when the demon started nuzzling at his head with his nose, letting out an odd growl that vibrated through his chest. The boy may have reeked of demon, but the scent of Ciel Phantomhive was just as strong, and more compelling. Fingers brushed through that silky blue-grey hair instead of groping his bum like the boy desired.

“Stop acting like I'm a cat,” he grumbled, headbutting Sebastian with just enough force to push him back.

“That was rude, young master,” Sebastian huffed, pinching at his arse in punishment. The earl squealed in response, glaring at his butler. He ground his rear down into the demon’s clothed groin with more force than was necessary.

“Impatient, are we?” He tsked, allowing the boy to do whatever he was trying to do for a little bit, watching in amusement as the boy grew more frustrated. Eventually, he grabbed those sharp hips and controlled the movement, grinding so that he found it more pleasurable.

The boy’s groin twitched with intrigue, and Sebastian decided to satisfy the boy by wrapping his hand around the length. Ciel gasped, planting his hands on Sebastian’s chest so that he could focus on bucking into that warm, ungloved hand. His shoulders hunched, head tilted upward. That heavy lidded look from those _royal blue eyes_ had Sebastian’s own pants beginning to tent. This was his living master, in a real body not made from clay and dead bones. He groaned at the thought.

Ciel’s panting hitched as his thrusts lost rhythm, his hips jerky and thighs clenching as he reached an orgasm, his body’s first orgasm, a long, low moan rolling from his throat as his white essence was caught by Sebastian’s hand, none of it spilling onto his abdomen.

He allowed the boy to fall onto his chest, an erotic look consuming the boy’s face. His thighs still twitched post-orgasm, which Sebastian found cute.

He could hear the boy’s heart beating frantically in his chest. Sebastian licked his lips with hunger.

The hand coated in sperm maneuvered to the boy’s rear, generously coating the boy’s entrance with his own seed. The liquid still warm to the touch, a more comfortable experience when Sebastian slid one finger in. It was just as tight as that fateful night… and yet the boy wasn’t crying out in pain.

“It will be painful at first, my lord, but your body will recover from it,” Sebastian purred. He did not mention about the part where the earl no longer had to worry about incontinence; those who had dabbled in anal play too often had found themselves with intestinal issues down the road. Now that Ciel was a super-healing entity, that fear was no longer a concern.

His other hand reached around to spread the boy’s cheeks, and fingers pressed inward to smear his insides, doing their best to prepare the young body for penetration.

Ciel shifted in discomfort, gritting his teeth as he forced himself to relax. This demon body of his seemed more willing to listen to his brain’s commands than that puppet of a body Sebastian had crafted. Eyes gleaming, those fingers burrowed further, halting before the boy’s prostrate, fingernail just barely tickling it to give the boy a tease. Ciel, on command of those fingers, gasped, his fingers bunching up in Sebastian’s clothes.

“D-did you do something?” Ciel sounded breathless, eyes wide from that very different sensation.

Sebastian guessed he was referring to a more demonic power. “No, my lord. That is merely the pleasure your body is capable of feeling.” He pulled his fingers out gently before moving to unbutton his tight pants. His large length pressed eagerly against the boy’s inner thigh.

Sebastian pressed Ciel’s head against his shoulder with the clean hand while the other moved upward. Sebastian stuck his own fingers into his own mouth, coating them excessively with his saliva. He wanted to make the boy’s first experience as pleasant as possible, despite demons’ notorious affinity with causing pain.

Those coated fingers glided over his penis, a makeshift lubricant. Normal human saliva wouldn’t be nearly enough for fornication, but a demon’s saliva could be made as a nice, gelatinous substitute if desired.

Prepared, he pressed himself against the younger demon’s entrance.

“I want you to merge with me at this point,” Sebastian murmured. Merging, they had discussed in detail so that when it happened, they would be safe. Merging was only known to be done between souls during sex. Sebastian did not have a soul, but he had demonic essence. There was only one documented instance of demon and human copulation of the soul and essence within the book written by the reaper in the underworld, but the process was not well explained. All Sebastian could hope for was for things to go smoothly. In the process of doing this, they would be able to exchange powers.

He let down the barriers surrounding his invisible essence allowing his ‘self’ to expand and cover the little demon he was holding. He could sense the soul brightly burning in Ciel’s chest. It was _his_ and no other demon’s. At the same time, he moved upward, sliding with no resistance into Ciel’s hole.

Ciel froze, absolutely suffocated by Sebastian in and around him. He let out nary a noise, so stuffed by Sebastian’s presence physically and spiritually. The demon sat inside of him, letting him adjust. He gripped at Ciel’s hips so that he could control the pace and movements so that when this fusion happened, they wouldn’t be jerked too far apart. His hips glided slowly, in and out, and finally the boy was able to let out a soft moan.

Ciel rose to his elbows and stared downward at Sebastian’s chest. He’d practiced this. He could do it.

His royal blue soul crept out of his body. He would not die or lose consciousness from this happening so long as it stayed close enough to his body. It was still quite a surreal experience. He was staring at his _life force_ , so vulnerable and exposed outside of his body.

His gasps shuttered, and Sebastian gripped tighter upon his hips, letting out a little groan of his own as he allowed himself to enjoy this. The soul sank into Sebastian’s essence and that drove Sebastian from quietly moaning to a startled shout as Ciel’s essence melded with his.

It was an intensity far greater than any orgasm or soul consumption he’d done. Ciel’s memories glided in front of his eyes just as his experiences swam in the boy’s vision. Their pleasure was being passed back and forth and the loopback of energy causing it to increase each time it reached either body.

“Sebas-sebas—seh-seh—“ the boy couldn’t form proper words, eyes unable to focus and he decided to keep them closed instead, choosing to submerge himself fully into the sensations. The demon himself was compelled to thrust harder, each pounding compounding in that jacob’s ladder of shared energy passing between them. His essence clung tight to Ciel’s soul, and Ciel’s tiny soul trembled in the great black tendrils that was Sebastian. Eventually, the soul succumbed, allowing the demon to siphon the energy that the boy had taken for all those years.

Ciel let out a pitiful whine, gritting his teeth, and Sebastian understood why. He could feel it too. It was painful to take so much energy from another in such a short amount of time. The energy Ciel stole was little by little, day by day, over a century, whereas all that energy now was being claimed within seconds. He released one hand from a hip and stroked Ciel’s back reassuringly. “We’re almost done,” he whispered, his own thrusts becoming as jerky as Ciel’s had been when he’d reached orgasm by the demon’s hands.

As soon as the energy transfer was over, Sebastian felt heavy with satisfaction and lust. His young earl was inside him, willingly, despite not having to be. He could taste every single flavour leaking from that vibrant soul, could feel the boy’s acceptance for the situation, the fact that they were both demons now, and that they would roam the line between mortality and damnation for the rest of their lives.

The climax came with a blinding light as Ciel’s soul was swamped with orgasmic energy. Their moans were unity, they were one, in essence. The boy had never known such feeling of closeness from anyone other than his family, but now, he could share it with Sebastian.

Ciel’s soul hesitantly withdrew, tendrils snaking out to grip at Sebastian even as it floated back into his chest. Ciel could immediately tell the difference he felt not holding Sebastian’s power anymore, but he didn’t need to hold onto the demon’s power when the demon was willing to let the earl use and abuse it to his heart’s delight.

He settled back onto Sebastian’s chest, content to just _breathe_ for a while. Breathe in Sebastian’s scent, breath in the energy between them. Sebastian purred with satisfaction, stroking the boy’s hair, neck, back, as he would his cats. His master, his little demon.

He would teach the boy to be a great and feared demon even if he didn’t know how to dress himself properly.

.o

“Now that you have gained your power back—in a very loud fashion, I might add,” Hannah started. Sebastian had no shame, but he could see the young master sputter and blush fiercely when he learned that their intimate actions last night could be heard. “I assume you’ll be hunting after Claude now.”

She held the long length of the teal-blue Lævateinn in offering to Sebastian. “This will kill him.”

Sebastian accepted the sword with both hands. “Thank you.”

Ciel would stay with Alois and Hannah while he performed this last task.

.o

With his full energy and the assistance of the Lævateinn, slaying the demon known as Claude Faustus was not a challenge. A thrill, yes, but not a challenge. He was beyond more powerful than the other butler, and had someone to return home to that gave him reason to make sure he walked out of this alive.

Outside of the Trancy butler’s manor they fought, in the starry night sky they flew, into the ground Claude fell, penetrated by the Lævateinn. His contract stared out in horror from one of the windows as her demon was permanently silenced. Sebastian could have very well claimed the contract, having fairly won the duel, but he decided not to. He had enough of souls taken outside of his contract.

He wielded the sword once more, carrying the demon’s still impaled, nearly beheaded body upon it like a trophy. He kept a hand firmly on the demon, a threat that he would inflict even more pain if he tried anything. One would think someone who was nearly beheaded would not be able to cause more trouble, but demons were the epitome of causing trouble even when on their metaphorical and literal deathbed. He would bring present the demon in front of Alois Trancy, and complete the severing of the head so that the boy could watch him die in person. The death-sentenced butler would be able to meet his judge and jury right before execution.

He hummed, cocking his head in contemplation. After a moment, he decided to make good on his word to one red-headed reaper. No longer needing the illegitimately obtained souls for his devices, he withdrew the souls of the children from Germany, and released them, watching as they floated off to be captured by grim reapers wherever they would be found. He smiled.

The lost souls would get what they wanted.

Hannah would get what she wanted.

Alois would get what he wanted. Luka would get what he wanted.

Ciel would get what he wanted.

And Sebastian would reap the benefits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Still can’t believe this started out as a Ciel/Sebastian fic and then it turned into an Alois&Sebastian fic. I didn’t expect Alois to play such a large role in the story, since it started off as vague no-name contracts. But bringing him into it, I’m glad that I did, because it allowed me to enjoy time exploring a nicer side of him if he’d had the right type of figure in his life. I can’t imagine Sebastian acting as a doting father to Ciel; Ciel is much too different for that. But Alois, yes. I imagine Sebastian being irritated at Alois if Ciel were still Sebastian’s contract, but with Sebastian being contracted to Alois, he could focus 100% on rehabilitating the kid.
> 
> I love Claude as much as I love all the other characters, but for the purposes of this fanfic he had to die. Because he took so small a role in this fiction, I decided to not elaborate much on the fight and the death, as he was not different in power or stature from how we saw him in the anime. Thus one can make their own conclusions on how the fight went.
> 
> Thanks for reading.


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